Guardian of the Peace - The Rewrite
by Mother-of-Monsters
Summary: **This is a rewrite of my original work, Guardian of the Peace.** With the world still fresh from the last World War, Sherlock Holmes may be all that stands in the way of a certain mastermind who wants nothing more than to watch the tentative peace dissolve into chaos. Fortunately for Holmes, his new Guardian is determined to make sure that in the end, Sherlock will come out on top
1. A Dramatic Moment of Fate

_AN: Hello my dears! I've missed you all so much. I can't apologize enough for taking so long to update and post. I've been going through kind of a rough time and a writing rut, but I think I've finally conquered it. This is (obviously) a rewrite of my story Guardian of the Peace. The original draft will remain posted for a while, until I finally manage to incorporate all of its material into the rewrite. That, and I didn't want to lose any of your glorious comments. I hope you will all love this as much as you loved the original posting, and you haven't completely forsaken me or written me off as a lost cause. Please remember, comments and constructive criticism are very much welcome. Thank you ever so much for reading!_

_Disclaimer- I do not own BBC Sherlock or any of its characters. I bow before the talented Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Gatiss, and Steven Moffat for the privilege of borrowing their characters for a bit of fun. Thank you, gentlemen, for sharing them with the world._

**Chapter 1: A Dramatic Moment of Fate**

_"Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill."_  
_― Arthur Conan Doyle_

Dr Mike Stamford stared at the open file on his desk and tried not to focus too hard on the way his eyes widened further with each sentence that he read. The soft sound of Harry Watson, his dear wife's frequently-on-and-off-the-wagon secretary, fidgeting in her seat across from him faded into the background under the sound of his own mind turning over and over like an engine failing to start. What he was looking at was the result of a culmination of years worth of scientific trial-and-error, intuitive leaps, accidental/unexpected successes, crushing failures, playing God, dumb luck, and a hint of madness.

"This," Stamford swallowed heavily, "this is fucking brilliant and terrifying."

Harry's face twisted into a combination grimace/snarl that was rather unattractive.

Mike scratched the side of his face, then rubbed his cheek with his palm for a moment before cradling his chin and leaning his elbow on the desk. "Look, I agreed to give your brother a check-up but I didn't," he cut himself off with a gusty sigh. He took another moment to collect his thoughts, then continued, "I'm not taking that back or anything. I'm just curious why you even bothered showing me all of, you know, this. Everything."

After a second of fidgeting with the cuffs of her shirt and chewing on her lower lip, Harry took a deep breath into her nose and let it out through her mouth while her shoulders slumped. She raised her red-rimmed eyes, underlined by dark purple bags hidden beneath a layer of powdered foundation to the ceiling. "I couldn't let you just go thinking he was going to be your normal, average patient. All the other doctors we've, well he's, gone to didn't know the extent of his physical condition."

"Harry, plaque psoriasis is a physical condition. Genetic engineers stripping the DNA of a fetus, then modifying it with coding from a dozen or so different animal species, manipulating it until a viable embryo is able to be implanted into a woman, and making sure it matures into a living, breathing, chimeric being is completely different."

"I know," Harry hissed, her thin-lipped mouth twisting. "I was trying to be delicate. Do you have any idea the trouble Johnny and I have run into bringing him even to a bloody hospital?" She raked a hand through her shoulder-length honey-gold curls. "The man has organs that shouldn't exist in a human body, for God's sake! Do you realize how hard that is to explain to the NH-bloody-S?"

Massaging one of his temples with two fingers to stave off the kind of headache one could only cultivate by absorbing proof that something which should have been 'science-fiction' was actually 'science-fact', Stamford let out a deep breath through his nose while pressing his lips together in a frown. "Just his damned organs? Try everything, Harry! His musculature and skeletal structures, circulatory system, every damned system in his entire body is different!"

"It all works the fucking same!" Harry shoved her seat backwards and lurched to her feet. She paced back and forth in the small space with rapid jerks of her arms and hands as she spoke. "He's still, at the core, a human being. He's not a science experiment, well he was, but he isn't anymore. Everything works the same, even if it's built a bit differently. But all that everyone seems to see when we bring him into an office is the novelty of it. They want to poke and prod him like a damned lab monkey!" Halting her frantic march, she planted her hands so firmly on the edge of the desk the pressure turned her skin white. "I just need somebody who will finally just give him a damn check-up once in a while to make sure he's healing all right and, maybe, recommend a therapist who understands that PTSD isn't just a bunch of fucking letters!"

The hand rubbing his temple in a circular pattern was re-purposed to wrap around his mouth as Stamford's eyebrows furrowed. After half-a-minute of silent but tense reflection in this position, he relaxed the pressure of his hand. "You came to me because you know I work with the Department of Defence." His voice was slightly muffled by his fingers, and there was no questioning inflection to the words. "I know my way around battle injuries and stressed soldiers. I'm flattered. Truly."

"But you don't treat genetically altered monsters? Navy sailors? Americans?"

"Harry, that's unfair." The corners of his lips drew down and he waited until her back bowed and her shoulders drooped in acquiescence. "I have an obligation to inform the Department about this. Frankly, it's unprecedented. If I take him on as a patient, and they find out I know about any of this and didn't bring it to the attention of Research and Development, I won't just lose my job, I'll most likely be eradicated."

A corner of Harry's mouth tilted upwards, "No need for dramatics."

"I really don't think I can be too dramatic about something like this," he flapped a hand at the paperwork in front of him. Holding up a hand in a bid for silence, he took another glance over the extraordinary reading material before him. Stamford removed his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes with both hands before replacing his lenses back on his nose. "Look, thanks to laws about doctor-patient confidentiality I can redact his name and a few other pertinent facts on the files. I still have to bring this sort of thing to the attention of the Department, though." He allowed a tired smile to grace his lips. "I'm not going to deny the fact that I would do this just to satisfy my curiosity alone. But, since you've been a good friend to my wife, I'm happy to at least meet him and see what he thinks about all this."

A litany of 'thank you's dripped from Harry's lips as she lurched up and around the desk to gather him in a desperate embrace. Mike sputtered a bit before patting her gently on the shoulders, his cheeks turning a blazing pink. It took a long moment for her to disentangle herself and sigh over and over in gratitude, as though a huge weight had been removed from her back, before she was calm enough to speak again.

"He's outside waiting for me in the gardens." Harry jerked a thumb over her shoulder towards the door. "If you want to meet him now?"

"Came prepared for all contingencies, did you?" Stamford grumbled, but still rose from his seat.

"No," her smirk was wicked and self-deprecating, "my license got suspended. He's driving me around today."

Mike gave her a parental, disappointed shake of the head, though his lips trembled as he tried not to smile. They stepped into the hall and traversed towards the gardens at a sedate pace; Harry's movements seemed a bit jerky, as if her mind was warning her legs not to give in to joviality and skip the whole way. When they reached the door and Mike grasped the handle to exit into the weak sunlight, Harry rested a hand on his elbow.

She was biting her lip again, and her eyes roamed his face for a second, as if she could see the answer to all her prayers there before her. "Thank you, Mike. I'll give you some time by yourselves. And try not to be too put off by his mood?"

With a shrug, Mike pushed through the door out into the soft, cool air. London's usually wet weather was tempered still from the previous day's rain, which filled the air with the thick, musty, dirty smell of damp concrete, and Mike drew it into his lungs like a smoker sucking in sweet nicotine. Some of the tension leaked out of his neck and back as he made his way into the middle of the tranquil oasis.

Many of the employees and patients sought out the quiet of the sprawling lawn and flower beds of the hidden courtyard. The sight of birds and bees and the occasional squirrel going about the business of survival amidst the riot of colourful blooms on bush, tree, and stalk seemed to fill every body that entered the garden with a serenity necessary to continue working in the chaos of a work-a-day hospital. Walking through the miniature meadow never failed to loosen tension-tight backs or roiling minds.

Seated on one of the benches made of recycled plastics that had been recently added to the garden beneath certain trees, was a hunched figure, hands clasped between bent knees, watching a squirrel chewing on something in its paws. Both man and rodent tilted their heads in short, barely noticeable twitches as they regarded each other. When the squirrel finished its morsel, it sat up higher on its hind legs, front paws against its thin, white-furred chest, and chittered softly.

An answering sound came from somewhere, and Mike's brows came together as he watched the squirrel make another noise, its tiny jaw trembling. Another sound, an exact echo, came from the same direction, though the animal's jaw made no motion. Tentatively, the squirrel weaved closer to the man, who slowly opened his hands and held out what seemed to be half of a pecan pinched between his left thumb and forefinger. Something, fear or anticipation, pulled the air taut for a long moment as man and animal sat waiting. It dissipated abruptly as the squirrel snatched the nut from the man's fingers and scampered off in that strange, gravity-defying bounce all squirrels use to move about.

A cool breeze ruffled Stamford's hair, and half a second later the man's head snapped up and towards the doctor like a hound on a scent. Mike approached him steadily, observing the way the man rubbed his palms along his thighs and slowly rose to his feet. It might have been nervousness, or perhaps embarrassment, but Stamford did not know enough about the man as a person to form a concrete conclusion. They stopped on the path about 3 feet apart, and cast an examining glance over one another.

Doctor John H Watson shared his sister's thin-lipped mouth and ears, and his eyes held a similar shape, but that was about where the resemblance stopped. With a square shaped face, strongly jawed, John was the rugged pit bull terrier to Harry's primped poodle. He might have been a few inches taller than Harry's 5'3" of height, but something in the way he carried himself made him seem taller than his average stature. Broad, sturdy shoulders set in military straightness were all that could be noted about his frame besides the fact that his torso was probably as square as his face.

A baggy, pale grey, hooded sweatshirt with a fouled anchor in deep navy blue embroidered over the chest hid the lines of his actual form, and oversized jeans continued the deception. Years of burning sunshine reflected off desert sand had bleached his hair to ash-blond flecked with steel-grey, and weathered his skin to the consistency and hue of bourbon-tinted lambskin.

He might have had a face as expressive as Harry's, but military training gave him the control she lacked. Only his eyes, quietly ferocious as a snow leopard, with the guarded flatness of a slate stone, gave any hint that there might still be fiery purpose buried somewhere inside his weary, wary stance.

"Doctor Mike Stamford," Mike extended his right hand firmly, "pleasure to meet you, Doctor Watson."

The muscle in John's jaw ticked a moment, and his eyebrows twitched towards each other as he looked at the hand extended towards him in friendship. He slipped his right hand out of the front pocket of his hoodie and grasped the hand stretched towards him in a firm, but not testing, grip. He did not speak, but his tongue did briefly wet his lower lip as he looked back up into Mike's eyes and nodded.

"I don't know if she told you, but Harry gave me your whole file." Stamford held up the manilla folder he'd just mentioned. There was a slight widening in John's eyes at the sight. Mike thought he heard the sound of a distant rumble of thunder as he continued speaking. "I work for the Department of Defence here, and I explained to her that if you did, in fact, consent to being my patient I would be required to hand over the basic scientific parts of your file to our R and D division. I can redact a lot of the personal information by citing doctor-patient confidentiality, but I cannot let the rest of this get swept into obscurity. Not if I want to keep my job. My employers would probably charge me with treason or something if I hid it and they found out about it." The grumbling, thunder-like sound seemed to be getting louder, and Mike noticed John's jaw clenching and unclenching. "Is that," he swallowed loudly, "are you growling?"

The sound cut off abruptly, and Stamford's eyes widened. John licked his lips and let out a gusty breath as he squeezed his eyes shut. After a taut silence, Watson chewed on his lower lip as his brows came sheepishly together. In a voice that rasped slightly he simply offered, "Sorry."

"It's fine I just," Mike rubbed the back of his head with the hand not holding the folder, "just wasn't sure I was actually hearing that or not."

John rubbed the line of his bottom lip with the edge of his left pointer finger, then ran his left hand through his wind-messed, short cropped hair. His eyes darted back and forth along the skyline visible above the building, "I don't always realize I'm doing it."

"Well, anyway," Mike gave the man a jovial grin; no harm done. "I told Harry that I'd only take you on as a patient and do all that if you consented to it. If you don't, then you can go ahead and take this back and go on your merry way."

Stamford held out the folder as he had held out his hand, and John let the other end of it sit in his palm for a moment before releasing it again. Mike gave him another smile, which he was pleased to find reservedly returned. "Shall we go ahead and set up an appointment for tomorrow, then?"

"If you don't mind." Cordial as a blue-blood, John's voice, when it seemed to be working properly, was smooth as glass and held the barest hint of an American accent. "Harry has me running errands with her all day today, so a break tomorrow would be most welcome." Each word was spoken with deliberate enunciation, whether that was by design to hide his accent or due to some lingering trauma from a brain injury, Mike was unsure.

"I'll bet. I'll see you in tomorrow around, say, eleven?"

"Certainly."

They turned and slowly made their way back towards the hospital door, and Mike took silent note of an awkward limp that seemed to plague John when he walked. There was no sign of it while he stood at near-attention before the nurse's desk as they solidified his appointment. It appeared again when Harry popped out of the ladies room and dragged him behind her out the door.

Once safely ensconced back in his office, Mike flipped open his desk drawer and lifted out his datalet. He held the device in his hands, feeling the weight of it, before setting it aside. Rising again, he lifted John's file and made his way out to the copy machine, where he duplicated the files once and snatched up another manilla folder to hold them. Back in the confines of his office, he took a large marker and dutifully blacked out as much of the personal information he could. Using his datalet he scanned the redacted file and sent it via email to the R&D Division of the Department of Defence for the Afro-Europe Coalition.

He placed the unmarked file into his personal briefcase, and slid the redacted copy into his patient files. The datalet beside him flashed at the corner, indicating the arrival of a return email. Reading the words of combined pleasure and disbelief, Stamford chewed on his lower lip and wondered what the future could possibly bring.

* * *

If Stamford had known several months ago what the future would bring, he would have slapped himself on the shoulder and taken himself out for a celebratory drink. John Watson appeared reserved on the surface, but beneath the layer of time needed to reach an understanding of the man, Watson was a friendly, engaging individual with a sarcastic wit and a backlog of frankly ridiculous war stories which he often told in such a straightforward but descriptive manner held his audience captive. Stamford had never become such a close friend with someone in such a short time.

By two months into their acquaintance, John was a gracious fourth person in Mike's bi-weekly poker nights with the other two teaching doctors at the hospital. Watson was neither a sore loser, nor an ungenerous winner. He was also always willing to buy a round on any pub nights that randomly managed to happen when the stars aligned just right for 'the boys' to find themselves out early from work with a whole night ahead of them.

It was on just one of those pub nights that Mike got his first glimpse of the steel beneath John's almost bucolic amiability.

They were just arriving at a newly relaunched pub, trying to switch up their routine a bit. John had just pulled up in his perpetually clean car, a midnight blue Suzuki, and joined Mike and his two best teaching cohorts on the pavement when a gunshot rang out through the air. The world seemed to stop, every person in earshot of the sound stalling mid-movement and staring in the direction they thought it was coming from.

Everything snapped back into motion as another shot rang out, and a man dashed out of the nearby alley as if his feet were on fire. Two Provosts, already on the chase, followed in his frantic footsteps; hunting hounds on the trail of a fox. The criminal turned and fired again, and one of the Provosts lurched backwards and fell. Passers-by on the pavement, onlookers, and a few pub patrons shouted or screamed, speaking a mile a minute into their blue-tooth headsets as they tried to get through to the emergency lines. All of that Mike might have noticed, if he hadn't been staring in dumbfounded awe at John Watson.

The man Stamford watched sprint to the downed officer, and crouch beside him, was Doctor John Watson, Combat Medic. In a sharp, even voice laced with the very essence of higher-rank, John ordered the officer's still-mobile partner to continue the chase. There wasn't even a moment of hesitation in response to that order, and the uninjured officer snapped back into motion, darting away as he shouted into his radio for backup.

Mike stumbled quickly forward as John pressed his hand hard against the injured officer's wound. One of their drinking companions, Dr Stephen Marsh, also joined him beside the men on the ground. John glanced up at them in the middle of gently assuring the officer that he would be fine. The officer, who's last name was apparently Morales according to John, was practically choking but seemed alert enough.

"What is it?" Dr Marsh's voice wavered into the high-pitch territory of borderline panic. "Punctured lung? Severed artery?"

"Pneumothorax, just a sucking chest wound," Dr Watson stated in the same sort of tone one might have answered the question 'what are we having for dinner?'. "Mike, I need you to take the keys out of my pocket, open the hood of my car, and get me the tube for the wiper fluid. Stephen, you're going to go inside and get me a bottle of straight whiskey, the more alcoholic the better, and a bottle of water."

When they hesitated, Dr Watson glared up at them through navy-dark eyes and spat, "Now."

Stamford wasn't sure what was in that voice, but he immediately dropped to a knee and shoved his hand into John's front jacket pocket, and Stephen bolted into the pub as if hyenas were on his heels. It was a real trick, that voice, Mike smirked to himself as he opened the bonnet of John's car and extracted the requested tube. Even if he hadn't been used to taking orders from a superior doctor in his university days, he still would have obeyed the order without question.

They might have done it a thousand times; Stephen returned with both the whiskey and the water bottle, just as Mike arrived with the plastic tubing. The nod of acknowledgement John bestowed on them was encouraging, even if his face was still set in stony calm. "Mike, I want you to pour the whiskey over and through the tube, and Stephen I need you to pour out some of the water in that bottle until it's half full."

Both men obeyed, and Mike marvelled that John was able to keep his voice so even with all the adrenaline pumping through his veins, and even though his American accent had thickened, Watson still spoke uniformly enough to be understood. Morales was beginning to struggle even harder to breathe, and John bent closer to him, keeping the officer's eyes fixed in a powerful stare. Mike handed the tube over John's right shoulder, watching as it trembled in the air. Stephen held out the half-empty bottle, which shook like a leaf in a wind storm.

Mountain-solid, Watson reached for one end of the tube and jammed it into the hole in Morales's chest. The officer moaned in pain, and a soft hissing sound escaped from the hose. "Sorry about that," John offered the officer, then looked up at Mike. "Put the other end of the tube into the water in the bottle."

Bubbles flowed out of the tube as soon as it was plunged beneath the water's surface. Stephen stared at the bottle as if it were a magic trick, just as the flashing lights and siren of an ambulance shrieked around a corner. Morales took a semi-deep breath without coughing. Marsh's mouth opened as his eyes widened in awestruck surprise, "It's a God-damn water seal."

"Do what you can with what you've got," John seemed to be quoting something, though who or what Mike was unsure. He took the bottle out of Stephen's quaking hand and gestured to the pavement behind them with a wave of his hand. "You two might wanna get out of the way of the ambulance. I'm gonna ride along. Make sure you lock up my car, okay?"

A panda car slid to a stop a half second before the ambulance did, and a grey-haired Provost with the shoulder patches of a Marshal hopped out to land heavily on his knees beside John. The paramedics slid out of the back of their rig, equipment in hand, and joined them as well. John sat back to give them room to work, and his voice cut through the sirens and chaos like a hot saw through ice.

"Tension pneumothorax due to trauma from a bullet fired from a small-caliber weapon. Handgun, probably a Sig, didn't seem heavy enough to be a Desert Eagle. I have a makeshift water seal in place but I can already see blood draining into the bottle. Let's move, his BP is at least 160 over 90 and climbing."

Between the Marshal, John, and the two EMTs, they hoisted Provost Morales up on a back board, then jogged him to the ambulance and pushed him onto the stretcher inside. John hopped in with the ambulance crew and Mike watched him disappear behind the doors as they closed. The Marshal slammed a fist against the back of the rig, and it sped off with the siren echoing off the walls. With a glance down to the keys in his hand, Mike gave a shake of his head and bolted for John's car. There was no way he was going to miss the other end of this incident.

John's car was awkward to drive, with the wheel being on the left side like all American cars, but Mike managed not to crash following the ambulance. He even managed to park the car straight in a spot that might have opened through kismet it was so convenient. Stamford jumped out, barely remembered to lock the doors over his shoulder, and rushed into the accident and emergency room just in time to see John disappear behind the doors of an operating room. The way the hospital workers seemed to be tripping over themselves to help made a grim smile of appreciation appear on Mike's face.

Half-an-hour of waiting later, Mike was sipping a hot cup of coffee from the cafeteria and chatting with the ladies at the nurses' station when the grey-haired Provost Marshal came barrelling into the waiting room. He was flanked by Officer Morales' partner, holding a battered looking prisoner, who was shoved ungracefully into a chair. As the Marshal approached the station, a grim expression on his tired, aged face, Stamford readied himself to be as useful as possible to help keep things running smooth.

"There was an officer," the Marshal began, but the round-faced nurse manning the sign-in roster cut him off with a smile.

"He's still in surgery, Marshal, but I believe he should make a full recovery." Her voice was sugar-sweet, and her smile just as kind. "Luckily there was a doctor already on scene."

"Bugger luck," the Marshal grunted, leaning heavily on the counter, "it was a bloody miracle."

Mike moved closer to him and shook his head, "Nothing more than being in the right place at the right time, sir." He held out his hand to the Provost superior and beamed a smile. "I'm Doctor Mike Stamford, Marshal. The man who saved your officer is a patient and friend of mine, a Doctor John Watson."

"Provost Marshal Greg Lestrade, at your service, Doctor," the Marshal pumped their hands twice in a firm shake. "Is he still about, your friend?"

"He's in the OR with your man," the nurse piped up from her seat while pushing two packets of paperwork over the edge of the counter. "I assume you'd like us to take a look at your prisoner too, sir?"

"Yes, thank you," Lestrade nodded and dragged the folders into his hands. "I'll keep my officer posted with him, but if you could call up some security, that would be helpful as well."

"Already on their way, sir."

Greg gave her an exhausted smile of gratitude, and then beckoned for Mike to follow him over to where his officer was standing guard over their mulishly silent prisoner. Judging by the heavy chewing motion of the criminal's jaw, he was less than impressed with his situation, and if it weren't for his hands being cuffed behind his back he would probably have taken off ages ago.

"It's amazing to me," Greg mumbled as he dropped into a chair and propped open a file on his knee, "how we can have all this fantastic technology and I still have to fill out bloody paperwork."

Mike chuckled softly, "The hypocrisy of the medical field – spend more money updating your phone and intercom system than you do on reporting software. Even my patient files are on paper."

"Criminals are less likely these days to even consider paperwork, Doctor," The other officer's deep bass tones carried over the din of the waiting room as he glanced over his shoulder at Stamford. "Most are accomplished hackers and would find breaking into your computer much easier than breaking into your office. Your less-advanced filing system is actually more secure in this day an age than you think."

"Cheers for making me feel like my carpal tunnel might actually be worth it, Officer." Mike smirked and lifted his coffee cup in a mock toast.

The barest twitch of the man's lips was about as much a show of appreciation as Mike was going to get. He turned his dark eyes back to the prisoner, "Take Mr Palenczek here for an example. He's a nurse aide for a very accomplished podiatrist in Notting Hill. His employer has all of his files backed up in a virtual database - accessible to anyone with a password. Mister Palenczek is a computer enthusiast, and it only took him three tries to worm his way into the account. If Dr Svenson had physical files instead of just digitized ones, Mister Palenczek wouldn't have been able to access them remotely, and would have been caught by any of the cameras located in and around the building. His little scheme of murder and mayhem wouldn't have even started." The officer looked pleased with himself and said to Lestrade, "See? Holmes isn't the only one who can do it."

Palenczek, a rat-faced individual with watery, pale blue eyes and greasy looking blond hair moved as if to stand up, but the burly officer standing watch over him just glared down at him with his broad arms crossed over his wide chest. The glare on this officer's face was a mixture of threat and hatred, not surprising considering Palenczek had shot his partner. Besides, the Provost had at least half a foot of height on him; defiance was all well and good, but it would do nothing but hurt his chances in the end.

Lestrade groaned in exasperation at the display, but was cut off by the sound of someone nearby clearing their throat.

John Watson stood a bit to the side of their group, his white zip-up hoodie and light blue jeans spattered and painted with blood. In one hand he held a blue rubber glove with the wrist end tied off. "I'm looking for the officer in charge?"

Stamford stepped a bit forward and gave John the kind of breathless smile worthy of greeting a war-hero who'd just shown his skills were more than an idle embellishment to a CV. "John, this is Provost Marshal Lestrade, he's the man in charge. Marshal Lestrade this is Doctor John Watson."

Lestrade rose to his feet, taking John's offered hand in both of his own and shaking it gratefully, "Thank you for what you did for Morales. Carlos is a great officer."

"It was nothing. Just doing my duty as a physician." John did not seem flustered by the praise, but his cheeks did turn a slightly darker shade of his normal colouration. He held out the glove in his hand, "The bullet is in here. I didn't have anything else to put it in."

The Provost, the criminal, and Lestrade shared a surprised glance, and the Marshal gladly took custody of the bullet by sliding the glove into a plastic evidence bag he retrieved from his coat pocket. "Thank you, Doctor. You didn't have to do that, but it's definitely going to be helpful."

John slid his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and shrugged while tapping the toe of his bad leg behind him.

Lestrade blurted out, "That was some quick thinking you did out there, Doctor. Don't think I've ever seen anything like it."

Watson's head tilted a bit to the side, his slate eyes dancing between Lestrade's and Mike's faces. "Like I said, just doing my duty. You can be assured Provost Officer Morales will make a full recovery. The bullet missed hitting anything vital so he should be back on his feet in no time."

"Again, my thanks to you," Lestrade held out his hand again, and John gave it a firm shake.

A small chill rose up Mike's back. He turned as the doors of the A&E hissed loudly open as a voice he would recognize anywhere barked out, "Well he wouldn't have gotten sodding shot if you had done your triple-damned job and subdued the bloody idiot when I told you too!"

Every eye in the room turned to take in the sight of a very livid tall man, his slim back ramrod straight beneath a coat that had flared dramatically with his sharp turn towards the subject of his ire. Standing just barely outside the door was a belligerent looking, unnaturally tanned, largely muscled man dressed like a villain's bodyguard from a bad television serial. A large, meaty, brass-knuckled fist rose up to point a finger into the slightly taller, thinner man's face. Mike stared, slightly wide-eyed, at the unfolding situation and beside him Marshal Lestrade groaned like an unwilling child being told it was time to go to the dentist.

"You listen to me you pompous arse," the tanned man grumbled, "my job is to make sure your scrawny neck don't get snapped while you frolic 'round the bloody city. Chasin' down crim'nal's isn't part of that description!"

Lestrade hid his face behind one of the packets of paperwork in his hands. Mike took a slow step back to put the Marshal between himself and the argument. John - one pale eyebrow raised in what might have been either amusement or intrigue - cocked his head to one side like a curious bird.

"He pulled the gun on me first, you illiterate imbecile! I told you he had the damned weapon before he even showed it! You should have grabbed for the gun, not rugby tackled the breath out of me!"

As the bodyguard began to shout back a retort that was little more than a string of repetitive insults, John leaned a little closer to Lestrade and asked in a soft voice, "Are you going to do something about this?"

"Not really," was Lestrade's exasperated reply, which was nearly lost beneath the tall man's scathing riposte to his bodyguard's profanity. "It's nearly impossible to stop Holmes when he gets going like this."

The shouting match degraded into something more akin to school-yard name-calling, and Mike could hear beneath it the rustling of frightened witnesses trying to decided whether to flee, and nurses trying to unobtrusively summon security. John shifted forward, and Stamford could just barely make out the slow rumble of John growling under his breath. Lestrade set his jaw and glanced around the room, gauging how much damage he could do by shouting to defuse the situation.

The decision about what to do to stop the slowly escalating, unfriendly debate was made by John. Watson darted forward, snagged both arguing men by their elbows, and gave them just enough of a tug to get them to step out of each other's personal space. Placing his short, stocky body directly between the two, John held them both at arms length and snarled in clipped, crisp consonants, "That's enough out of both of you! This is a hospital for God's sake, not Parliament!"

Silence descended so quickly, Mike fancied he could hear both men's teeth click as their mouths snapped shut. The taller man looked down at John as if surprised to see him there, and the broad bodyguard stared down at the shorter doctor with a poisonous glare. Despite the size of the men he had forced apart, John looked as immovable as granite, and as disappointed as a school teacher.

"You," John's eyes darted to the bodyguard, "are going to go outside and take some deep breaths of fresh air to cool down." As the broad man opened his mouth to argue, John turned his eyes to the taller man and cut off any chance of disagreement by saying, "And you are going to go sit down in one of those chairs by the Provost Marshal. I assume you're here to speak with him, are you not?"

This time the tall man opened his mouth, but before he could utter a sound, John went from solid rock to 5'7" of pure Military Officer, turning back to the bodyguard with a sharp growl and authoritatively barking,"Why are you still here?"

Without further delay, the bodyguard backed up a few steps, eyes wary, and did as he was told, walking back out the sliding doors and onto the pavement. Watson turned back to the taller man sans snarl and simply indicated the direction of the Provost Marshal with a hand gesture. A long moment followed in which the tall man's pale eyes intensely studied the short man before him, then one of his dark brows rose as if intrigued.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?"

"Oh, bugger," Lestrade groaned, sounding completely exhausted and utterly finished with life in general.

"I'm sorry, what?" John's head cocked to the side curiously.

"It's a simple question, really, where did you serve – Afghanistan, or Iraq?"

Leaning his head back just slightly, in order to better give his tall interrogator a once-over, John responded, "Afghanistan. How did you know?"

"Well, everything about you fairly screams military – the haircut, the way you hold yourself, the way you bark an order and expect it to be followed." As he spoke, the tall man pivoted gracefully and strode over to where Lestrade seemed to be trying unsuccessfully to beat his own brains out with a handful of insurance paperwork. "Then there are your tan lines – no tan above the wrist or below the collar means you've been abroad but not sunbathing. Also, let's not forget the fact that your clothing is covered in blood but you seem more than able to completely ignore it. Your accent? American, though you're doing a wonderful job hiding it. So, American, military, recently returned from deployment. Where has there been any sign of military action? Afghanistan or Iraq."

The look John cast Mike's way was equal parts wary and bewildered. Stamford only managed to shrug before Lestrade grunted and grumbled, "Sherlock, do me a favour and shut up before I have to keep someone from bludgeoning you to death? Me, for example?"

Mr Holmes gave the Marshal a frown paired with a dismissive wave of one pale, large hand. "Don't be ridiculous, Lestrade. By the by, why do you have our victim's brother in custody?"

This statement was greeted with a number of exclamations, two of incredulity, one of surprise, an 'I bloody told you', and an odd inquisitive noise that made everyone give Dr Watson strange look. John licked his lips and looked mildly apologetic. Holmes narrowed his verdigris eyes at Watson but asked no questions.

"Mr Palenczek here is guilty of little more than a bit of hacking to create false prescriptions to feed his and his flatmate's opiate habits. Your killer, the same man who attacked Provost Morales, is Mr Palenczek's flatmate, who at this very moment is probably skipping town. If you managed to recover the bullet, which I doubt, it would have turned up in the system matching the ones used in the other murders in the area, and a home invasion incident wherein the gun that was used to wound an officer of the law was originally used to protect Mr Palenczek's flat from a burglar, and it is registered to his flatmate, ex-Army Private Thomas Holten."

Sherlock looked smug at the Provost and Marshal's confused glances at one another. "Mr Holten was returning to the flat and, when he saw you dragging out Mr Palenczek, bolted the same moment that our hacker here did. I stopped Mr Holten at the end of the alley. Mr Palenczek ran passed us in his escape, and Mr Holten opened fire on us just as Officers Morales and Masterson came down the alleyway. They took off after Holten, and Brutus and I took off after Palenczek after, I got that oaf off of me, of course."

"Wait, Brutus?" Lestrade asked.

Holmes didn't even pause to answer, "Both Mr Palenczek and Mr Holten have a friend in common, and they both headed to the apartment of a Mr Stephan Bridger, within whose flat Officer Morales caught up with Mr Palenczek, but not Mr Holten who fled through the flat and out the back into the depths of London. I would have gone after him myself, but neither Brutus nor Officer Masterson here would hear of it. I traced Mr Holten as far through the back alleys as I could until Brutus made a nuisance of himself by shouting and calling attention to me, thus allowing Mr Holten to escape. Again."

Lestrade tried asking again, "Seriously though, who's Brutus?"

"My bodyguard," Mr Holmes' expression implied he could not believe just how stupid Mr Lestrade was being in his inability to understand such a simple thing as a name.

The Marshal looked genuinely puzzled, as did Officer Masterson. Mike felt a look of confusion settle on his face as well, and dared to ask in a quiet, subdued voice, "I thought his name was Bob?"

Holmes looked momentarily unsettled, "Is it?"

"Actually it's Bart," a deep, gruff voice called attention to itself, and the little group turned their eyes to the bodyguard, who had apparently calmed enough to return inside the hospital. He pointed at Holmes again and said, "And by the way, I bloody quit. Find your own way back to your shit flat, you useless freak."

With those words, the large man turned and strutted indignantly out of the hospital again. Holmes shrugged, and turned to Lestrade with a strangely unsettling smile on his face. The Provost Marshal frowned.

"Not a bloody chance in hell, Sherlock." A half-second later, a superior smirk blossomed on the Marshal's face. "By the by, I just so happen to have that bullet, thanks to the good doctor, of course."  
When Lestrade indicated John with a nod of his head, Sherlock raised a very expressive eyebrow and locked his observant eyes on the smaller man. John answered his silent question with an equally silent raise of his own brow and of his chin. The stand-off might have continued, but Lestrade dangled the bag holding the gloved bullet in front of Holmes' face, distracting him from what might have been a litany of unnecessarily invasive deductions.

Sherlock held the bag up to the light, studying the dark blob within the confines of dual layers of plastic as if it might hold the secret to the universe. He handed it back to Lestrade with a sigh, and demanded, "Give me your datalet, Lestrade."

"No," the Marshal replied in an almost bored tone. Any further commands were nullified as a nurse came out to collect the prisoner and both officers and lead them into a secluded room.

Holmes turned to Mike with that same, unsettling smile. Doctor Stamford shook his head, holding up his hands in a sort of surrender, "Sorry, Sherlock, it's in my car, which is back at the pub."

"Use mine."

Both Sherlock and Mike glanced over at Doctor Watson, who held out a battered looking datalet in Sherlock's direction. Out of the corner of his eye, Mike could see Holmes' face go blank. It looked surprised, in an abstract way, as if Sherlock had no idea how to react.

Holmes blinked twice, then took the offered device with a softly spoken, "Thank you."

John gave him a simple nod, and turned to give Mike one of the oddly expressive eyebrow raises the American was capable of – when he bothered showing expressions. Mike felt another chill creep up his spine as, in his peripheral vision, he noticed Sherlock gave the datalet in his hand a quick visual scan. Holmes returned the gadget to its rightful owner by shoving it back into John's hands and simply walking off in the same direction that Lestrade and the prisoner had been led.

No parting shot, no after-the-fact deductions, nothing but a silent walk off through the hospital corridor. The chill that had been running up Mike Stamford's spine was now bouncing from his head to his feet as he looked at John Watson staring after Sherlock Holmes, with a furrowed brow drawn down over confused eyes. "What did he do?"

John glanced back at him, frowning, "It's just a text to a number. It says 'Oaf quit. Stranded at Bart's. Send car. Dash SH'. There's no response. Who was that, by the way?"

"That was Sherlock Holmes," Mike felt a peculiar grin tug on his features as an idea coalesced in his mind. "John, I have a proposal for you, if you'll drive me back to the pub?"


	2. The Impossible Task

_AN: Hello again! I'm so happy all of you continue to join me in my rewrite. I'm so glad you are all so accepting and welcoming. Thank you so much for reading. I hope I can continue keeping up with your encouragement!_

_Disclaimer: I do not own BBC Sherlock, or any of the canon characters herein. I bow before the talented Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Gatiss, and Steven Moffat for the privilege of borrowing their characters for a bit of fun. Thank you, gentlemen, for sharing them with the world._

**Chapter 2 – The Impossible Task**

_"...King tries impossible task - wishing to be scientific man who know all modern things... He will only tear himself in two, trying to be something he can never be!" - Kralahome, Roger's and Hammerstein's 'The King and I'_

With World War 3 over with and the Persian Land Conflict in full swing, Mycroft Holmes, head of Defence for the Afro-European Coalition, had more things to worry about than keeping an eye on his wayward little brother. Hell, even without the miniature land war currently ravaging the New Persian Empire he should have had more than enough on his proverbial plate to occupy his days. Unfortunately, worry for his brother's safety seemed determined to present itself as the most pressing of matters this side of the twenty-first century.

He read his brother's most recent message for a fourth time and covered his eyes with a hand that shook slightly with fatigue. A normal day was a trial in and of itself; the energy necessary these days to keep the peace between friendly nations while still keeping an eye on his own nation's interests, so as not to be stabbed in the back, was as mentally fatiguing as running a decathlon would be physically exhausting. When adding his younger sibling's inability to endear himself to anyone - Sherlock's eccentric personality and habits, his weakness for dismissing other people as little more than irksome gnats on the flypaper of his life – long enough to establish some sort of respect to the mix was melting his brain to so much mush that some days it was all he could do not to drink himself to death.

The door of his office opened with the hushed sound of wood against carpet, and he moved his hand slowly from his face to see his visitor. Standing at the front of his desk, perfectly centred, was his personal assistant. She held her datalet underneath her arm and a silver tray in her perfectly manicured hands. Upon the tray sat a blue and white china teapot with a tiny bit of steam curling up from the spout, and a matching empty cup and saucer.

She was dressed in a black pant-suit and seemed shorter than usual, so she was probably wearing flats instead of her usual knee-spraining heels. Without speaking she placed the tray on the top, centre edge of his desk and then placed down her datalet beside it. The handle of the teapot she gripped in a hand with nails painted a matte burgundy, and poured out a stream of dark, shimmering tea until the cup was nearly full. No sugar was added, his diet would not allow it, but she did pull a small vial of golden-coloured brandy from somewhere within her jacket and added it to the liquid in the cup. He answered her understanding smirk with a small, weary smile of his own.

As she placed the cup on the blotter before him, she stated softly, "Good evening, Sir. I took the liberty of preparing a night report. Consider it my permission for you to have a late morning tomorrow."

"I'm afraid, my dear, that a late morning tomorrow will be impossible." He tapped his datalet with a finger, "It seems Bartholomew Randolph has finally gotten enough of his charge and has abandoned his post."

His assistant rolled her eyes and let a loud puff of air out through her plump, cherry-glossed lips. "That's the fourth Guardian this month!"

"Indeed." Mycroft took a grateful sip of tea. "Since my brother is bound and determined to be obstinate, I need you to send over a car and four of our most competent and least friendly agents to gather him up and watch over him. Notify the Provost General that they shall have to do without my brother's expertise for the foreseeable future. This time he's under house arrest, and if we cannot find a suitable replacement he can rot there."

"Shall I authorise the use of physical force if necessary, Sir?" His assistant asked timidly.

"God yes." He answered forcefully. As she tapped his orders into her inter-office messenger application, he could see her glancing at him up through her full eyelashes. He relented a bit beneath her worried scrutiny. "Tell them not to do any permanent damage?"

"Of course, Sir." She finished tapping out the message and gave her screen a quick swipe with the stylus. "Shall I begin my report?"

"Yes. You might as well, since you have it already prepared. We shall forego tomorrow's report and focus instead on gathering up applicants for the vacant, and highly undesirable, position of my brother's Guardian." Leaning back in his chair, Mycroft lifted his cup in one hand and rubbed his temple with the other.

She waited half a second before beginning, "A new possible treaty has been put forth by the Ru-Asian Alliance in regards to the Persian Conflict. I have taken the liberty of forwarding it to your business email account. The Austro-Pacific Collective has sent us a peace offering in the form of several documents explaining their new research into Cybernetic technology. The American Legion has also sent us several documents, though more in the spirit of scientific curiosity than the interest of peace. I took the liberty of forwarding one of them to your business account, as well as Research and Development, because it pertains to new breakthroughs in Genetic manipulation."

"Genetic manipulation," he repeated softly, brow furrowing in concentration. "There was a mentioning of just such a thing several months ago, was there not?"

"Yes, Sir. Doctor Stamford sent a redacted patient file to the Research and Development Department – it belonged to an unnamed American soldier that is now in his care. The American Legion boasts some new successes in their now in-progress 'Super Soldier' initiative." She wrinkled her nose at the unoriginal project title. "There are currently seven new ten-man units of 'Gen-A', or Genetically Anomalous, soldiers being deployed to Afghanistan to join in the conflict. Dr Stamford's patient was one of them. I have endeavoured to discover who this man is, but doctor-patient confidentiality forbids Dr Stamford to reveal his information. The American Legion is playing things very close to the vest."

"Of course they are. See if you can place some more pressure on them. I should like to know their reasoning behind playing God. Message our Ambassador in South America if you must."

She nodded and made a notation on her screen. "That is all I have in regards to new international progressions. As for the Homefront, before the unfortunate incident with the murder, Master Holmes had finally managed to solve our present spy problem. Provost Marshal Gregson has arrested twelve New Persian and Ru-Asian operatives in London, Sussex, and Cambridge. He does, however, assure us that the case is not so much 'solved' as it is 'curbed for the time being'."

"Make a note to send Sherlock a fruit basket, and remember to sign it 'Sincerely - The Commonwealth'."

Her smirk of understanding made the corner of his mouth twitch in amusement. A sharp, short beep from her datalet recalled her attention and she frowned down at the screen. As her brows drew down pensively, she stated, "Your brother has been collected from the hospital, Sir. He's apparently being extremely belligerent." One of her eyebrows rose, "It appears they have things well in hand though."

"Meaning?"

"They've tased him. Twice."

Mycroft groaned and slumped down in his seat, draining the rest of his tea in one depressed gulp. "I am not looking forward to having anything to do with Sherlock for the next month."

"Probably best to prepare not to have anything to do with him for at least a year at this point, Sir. He's the second most stubborn man I've ever met. He'll hold on to this anger for a long time."

Humming in agreement, Mycroft rose wearily from his chair and dragged his feet to his coat rack. He donned his coat and settled his umbrella over his arm before returning to lift up his own datalet. He paused as he rounded the corner of his desk and looked down into his assistant's eyes. "Just out of curiosity, who is the most stubborn man you've ever met?"

"You, of course, Sir." Her smile was equal parts teasing and sincere. "You would have to be, since you have yet to commit fratricide."

A smirk turned up the corner of his mouth a bare millimetre, "I'm still contemplating the ramifications. Please bring me a listing of potential Guardian candidates tomorrow afternoon? I think I will try to take a later morning tomorrow, if only to actually complete an eight hour night of sleep."

Her only answer was a graceful nod of the head as she looked down at her datalet when it beeped again.

* * *

The office of Dr Mike Stamford was clinical in its furnishings, but there was such a collection of personal detritus cluttering the walls and desk and shelves, that it was no wonder patients found it a comforting place. There were pictures of Stamford and his wife, his colleagues, and his students on every available surface in a myriad of different frames, or no frame at all. One wall was entirely taken up with various anatomical posters of every system in the body. Medical texts and journals mingled with psychological texts, hospital procedurals, fiction novels, and a few books on fishing. It projected a very intimate atmosphere, even though the space was broken up with a very clinically white, metal desk backed by a very broken-in leather office chair and the sort of firm waiting-room chairs patients were expected to occupy.

Instead of sitting in one of the chairs meant for consulting patients, she sat primly in the office chair behind the desk, a small stack of files in front of her. Dr Stamford himself was out of the room at the moment, presumably seeing to his appointments for the day. The toe of one of her patent leather shoes tapped rhythmically against the inside of the desk, making the loose handle of the bottom drawer rattle quietly as she read.

Seven possible candidates lay before her. The first in the pile was a Frenchman, a mercenary, and though his medical chart proclaimed him physically sound, there was something she didn't like about the possibility of 'anger issues' mentioned in his psychological profile. The second was a heavy-set African woman, whose psychological file was exemplary, and her intelligence was at a near genius level, but she was also diabetic, which might cause problems in the long run. She chewed her lip over the Czechoslovakian's and the Russian defector's charts – something about them both set her on edge, but considering their charts were fairly average with nothing particularly distressing mentioned anywhere, she wasn't sure how to explain her unease. As for the Israeli man and the Italian woman, both of whom were ex-military, her feelings were entirely neutral.

The seventh, literally the odd man out, was what really captured her attention. She had left it for last so that she could go over it with all the consideration it was due. After carefully going over each of the other files one by one, scanning them into her datalet and adding electronic highlights and notations for her employer to peruse at his own pace, she stacked all but the seventh into a pile and placed them on a corner of the desk. At last she placed the seventh file, unopened as of yet, in the centre of the oversized calendar Dr Stamford used in lieu of a blotter, and placed a hand on the cover. Pausing, she revisited her early morning conversation with Dr Stamford in her mind's eye.

_Arriving nearly an hour early for Stamford's usual arrival time, she was surprised to find the man already seated at his desk, leaning his chin on his hand and staring tiredly down at the small stack of files he had withdrawn at her direction last night. She knocked politely, and Mike started with a sheepish smile. He beckoned her in with a friendly wave of the hand, and stood up as she entered._

_"You're here early, Doctor," she observed._

_"Well, considering what happened last night," he scratched the side of his neck, as his voice faded off, his cheeks reddening as if he were embarrassed. Trying another avenue, he stated, "I came in early to pull the files you requested. I whittled it down to six, all of whom have never been exposed to Sherlock before, at least not that I'm aware. You can feel free to use my office to read them over, if you like."_

_"Thank you, Doctor, that's very kind of you. I'd be happy to take up your offer. I'd rather get my notes down in a timely fashion than have to rush them in the car. I was going to wait for you to come in, since I already picked up the psychological exams, but your being here already makes my morning a bit easier."_

_"That's me," he chuckled, "always willing to help out a fellow government employee."_

_Turning the office chair out in invitation, he sat the files down in the middle of the desktop as she settled into the seat. "Would you like me to bring you in a cup of tea?"_

_"No, thank you. I've already had my morning cup. I should be alright for the next hour or so before I head to the office."_

_Stamford hesitated at the edge of the desk, and wrung his hands together as his brow furrowed in agitation. She squinted at him, tapping a long-nailed finger against the manilla folders as she waited for him to speak. When he seemed disinclined to be bold, she asked, "Is there something else?"_

_"Well," he swallowed audibly, "I do have another file for your consideration. If you're willing of course." It took him a few nervous, jerky movements to retrieve a file from his cabinet. He fiddled with the edge of the folder for a moment before he handed it over. She noticed his hand trembled very lightly. "It's not one of the ones you asked for and it isn't one of the ones you already dismissed."_

_Such a vague statement caught her attention, and she read the name on the tab out loud, "Watson, John MD."_

_"Do you remember a few months ago I sent an email of a file to the R&D department?"_

_Her eyes grew a little wide as she resisted tearing the file open in eagerness, "This is him? The American experimental?"_

_Mike's genial face twisted into an expression that seemed to try marrying grimacing in disgust with smiling fondly. It wasn't the best look. "I'm sure Sherlock didn't mention it, but last night John was the one that saved Provost Officer Morales' life. You can appeal to Marshal Lestrade if you want the details, but the gist of it is that Doctor Watson not only saved the life of an officer of the law, but he also faced down an irate Sherlock, and his Guardian at the time, without flinching. I saw it with my own eyes." He rubbed the back of his head in bewilderment, "I actually witnessed Sherlock walk away without a parting quip."_

_Both of her perfectly maintained eyebrows rose halfway up her forehead. After a quiet minute of contemplation, she simply stated, "Thank you, Doctor Stamford. I shall apply to Marshal Lestrade when I have a moment free."_

_He let out a breath as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. "Thank you. I asked John last night if it was alright to put him forward for the position. He seemed," Stamford sputtered for a minute as he searched for an appropriate expression. "Well he seemed flattered, eager even, if you can believe it."_

_"Perhaps he's finding London a bit boring after being at war."_

_"No," Mike was frowning again. "I think he's actually eager to be doing something he'd find purposeful. And, well, I don't know but," the doctor shrugged helplessly. "Just something about seeing John and Sherlock last night, even after Sherlock deduced he'd been in Afghanistan. Something just, clicked in my head." He pursed his lips, looked her in the eyes and then added, with a bit of conviction in his tone, "I think John might actually be just what Sherlock needs. And vice versa."_

_"I will be sure to take that into consideration," she stated with a nod of dismissal. "Also, I will be sure to pass on your recommendation to Mr Holmes."_

_With a decisive bob of his head, he thanked her softly and quit the room. She placed her elbows on the desk and laced her fingers together before her mouth, staring down at the seventh file. It took her less than a second to reach a decision to call on the Marshal, and she stood her datalet on the desk before tapping out his video call code. It took four rings for him to answer._

_The grey-haired Provost Marshal had large bags under his eyes, and the creases of his shirt declared it to be the same one he had been wearing the previous day. He wore no tie, the top three buttons of his shirt were undone, and his uniform jacket hung haphazardly over one side of the back of his chair._

_After blinking at her for a moment, he greeted, "Good morning, Ma'am. How can I help you?"_

_"Good morning, Marshal Lestrade. I'm sorry to disturb you, but Doctor Stamford directed me to appeal to you in regards to someone you met last night, a Doctor John Watson."_

_"Yes, Ma'am. He saved the life of Provost Morales by creating a water seal out of a water bottle and the tube from his car's windscreen wiper fluid. He even assisted in the surgery that removed the bullet from Morales' shoulder, and brought the intact bullet out to me and my team."_

_"Can you tell me your opinion of him?"_

_Lestrade frowned and leaned back in his rickety chair, rubbing his mouth and chin with his right hand as his brow furrowed in thought. He was silent for a very long time. She waited patiently for him to answer._

_Finally, he offered, "Mind you, I didn't exactly observe him for very long. He's obviously good in a crisis, and he must be worth his salt as a doctor if they didn't kick him out of the operating room." The Marshal lifted a coffee mug from somewhere out of the camera frame and brought it to his lips, taking a deep sip before tapping the finger of his right hand where he held it steady at the rim. "I was a little impressed with the way he diffused the situation with Mr Holmes and his Guardian when they arrived."_

_"Please elaborate."_

_She watched the muscle in his jaw twitch as he drummed his fingers against the side of his mug. He placed the cup down with an assertive thump. "What exactly is this line of inquiry about, Ma'am? If you're looking for something to use to discredit him or something," he quietened when she raised a finger to silence him._

_"Doctor Stamford has called Doctor Watson to my attention as a potential candidate for the position of Mr Sherlock Holmes' Guardian."_

_The Marshal sat back in his chair as if the breath had been knocked from his lungs. A look of shock had taken over his eyes, which quickly morphed into a look of intrigued consideration. Leaning forward again, he rested his jaw against his thumb and rubbed his bottom lip as he thought._

_Defeat etched itself into Lestrade's features and he placed his forehead against his palm. When he looked up again, his head hanging a little between his shoulders, he looked as if he'd aged ten years. "I've known Sherlock for over five years. He's a good man, in my opinion, and he might even be a great one some day if he started solving crimes for the sake of justice, instead of as interesting puzzles." He sighed heavily as he leaned back in his chair again, staring down at the edge of his desk. "I've seen him high as a kite, and I've seen him go through Guardians like a runaway lorry."_

_Lestrade looked up into her image, a determined and hopeful spark lighting his dark eyes, "Last night I saw a man stand between two of the tallest blokes in my acquaintance and diffuse a very tense situation with words alone, and not even a threat of violence. I saw Sherlock deduce the fact that he had served in the military, and the man didn't even threaten to strangle him. I think his foresight in saving the bullet from Morales' shoulder actually impressed Holmes. He's got as good a chance as any to make an impression, and a better chance than anyone else to stay on for more than a damned week."_

_Nodding cordially, she stated, "Thank you, Provost Marshal. Your input is definitely valuable. Enjoy your day, if you can."_

_"Your welcome, Ma'am. Good day."_

As she collected her thoughts and made a few notes of her own regarding the Marshal's testimony, she sent an email to the Surveillance department for the closed circuit television footage from the officer-involved shooting incident, and the confrontation at the hospital. By the time the footage arrived, she had already gone through all of Doctor Watson's biological information and physical statistics. She read through the psychological information before she turned her attention to the footage.

For someone who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, the stocky doctor rushed into the fray to Provost Morales' side with the kind of speed expected of a combat veteran. There was no hesitation in his movements, no second-guessing in his reactions. The people around him obeyed his orders as if by instinct, and there was never a moment in which they argued with him.

When he arrived in the hospital, he seemed to switch tactics and offered his services to the surgeon-on-call, who seemed to be almost grateful for an extra pair of experienced hands. They worked swiftly and efficiently, almost dancing around each other. The resident surgeon lifted the bullet from the wound with forceps, and dropped it into an open glove that Doctor Watson held out. As Watson tied it off, the surgeon gave him a perfectly friendly nod of gratitude, a very graceful dismissal, as he began to close up the wounded man.

The footage flowed seamlessly to the argument between Sherlock and Bartholomew Randolph. She could see the tension mounting in the room, from the shuffling of frightened civilians in the waiting room to the nurses milling behind the counter of their station. Watson's swift, decisive intervention brooked no argument from either the belligerent Bartholomew nor the always obstinate Holmes.

When the video reached the point of Sherlock walking off without a word, she was stumped. In all the time she had been Mr Holmes' personal assistant, and thus been exposed to his capricious younger sibling, there had never been a moment where Sherlock Holmes neglected to quit a room without a parting shot. It was anomalous enough that she wasn't even sure it actually had happened. She immediately forwarded the footage to her employer's inbox, along with her scans of the files and her electronic notes. With a double check of the desktop in front of her, she swept up the files and her datalet, and took her leave of the room.

In the car on her way into the office, she mocked up a schedule for her employer for the next month. The candidates would have to be brought in for a comprehensive medical and physical examination, and of course an interview with both Misters Holmes would have to be coordinated. That would take some preparation – a second driver would be needed to cart Mr Holmes the younger to the interviews and back to his current flat, and she would need to find an extra few agents to relieve the four men keeping Sherlock under house arrest. She would also need some men to ensure Mr Holmes the younger did not slip away during the interviews.

She spent most of the ride sliding meetings around her employer's schedule, and sending messages through voice contacts and emails to the other parties to confirm the changes. At least she could feel accomplished in that when she arrived at the office. Organization was a skill she took pride in, and inserting her will over the schedule of others in order to make her own employer's less taxing was a rather calming exercise.

With a morning greeting to the security officers of the building as they moved her through the checkpoints, she strode into the elevator, swiped her key card and watched the doors close before her. As was her normal routine, she admired her outfit for the day in the reflection of the silver doors. She had chosen a brand new camisole edged in red lace beneath a designer cardigan of black cashmere, and a knee-length pencil skirt of black cotton. Black pumps with a matte finish gave her the height and posture she needed to look some of the oiliest, smarmiest politicians and secretaries in the world in the eye.

Giving her reflection a smirk as the doors opened, she strode out into the office hallway. Ignoring the rest of the workers in their cubicles, always so focused they never seemed to notice her passing, she made her way through the twisting layout to the office break room. Once there, she filled and plugged in the electric kettle.

While the water boiled, she pulled out a plain, black tray made of patent leather with a crocodile skin print, and located the unembellished white tea set her employer preferred for days that would be spent working at arduous tasks. In her opinion, that tea set had seen far too much use since Mr Holmes the younger had begun assisting the Provosts of London at their work. She added a bag of Black Assam tea to the teapot and filled it with the boiling water from the kettle. It was allowed to steep for about five minutes while she filled the sugar bowl with white cubes, and a small pitcher with whole milk.

Placing her datalet and the files under her arm, she lifted the platter in her hands and made her way to the door. It predictably opened just before she reached it, as one of the desk agents blearily entered the room to start up the coffee machine. She moved out into the maze of cubicles and wound her way around to her boss's door.

The secretary just beyond his doorway, a petite blonde by the name of Maria, smiled at her before getting up to open the door. "He's running a bit late today, Ma'am. He sent me a message that he would be here ten minutes ago, but he still hasn't come through."

"Perhaps the car is stuck in traffic. I'll send him a message myself and wait inside."

"Of course, Ma'am," the pretty girl opened the door with a small bow at the waist.

When she placed the tray down on the desk, she glanced at the top of her datalet to see if it was indicating a new message. A little green light winked at her, and she sank down into the chair opposite the desk as she lifted the screen in her hand. She woke and unlocked it with a touch to find the same message on her screen as that which had been sent to the secretary.

**Good Afternoon, Sir. Are you stuck in traffic?** she replied.

Almost instantaneously she received an answer, **Afternoon. I despise today's route. I have already sent a lecture to the other drivers. I may have to fire someone. - MH**

Sighing, she stood up and walked around the desk to the old fashioned speaker box sitting on the left side. She depressed the button and said, "Maria, please fetch me either a plate of scones or finger sandwiches from the cafeteria?"

"Yes, Ma'am," the speaker crackled back. She could hear the girl's amusement, even through the slight hiss of feedback.

His follow-up message read,** Shall be in shortly – perhaps five minutes. I trust you have everything in order? - MH**

**Of course, Sir. I have paper and electronic files for your perusal, the tea is ready, and Maria is fetching you a plate for lunch as we type.**

After a minute, she received, **You are getting a raise. - MH**

She chuckled to herself, but did not bother replying back. Tea and food were the key to any man's heart, it seemed. Perhaps if she just told the men watching over Sherlock to ply him with tea and cakes, they could tame him into a proper, useful human being instead of a complete prat.

Occupying herself with a crossword, she waited a further three minutes for Maria to arrive with a plate of assorted scones, complete with bowls of clotted cream and jam. Her employer entered the room a scant minute afterwords, shooing the secretary out with a stern warning along the lines of 'we are not to be disturbed unless the world is ending'. If anything he looked even more tired than he had the previous night.

"You visited him, didn't you Sir?"

Sinking into his chair, Mycroft dragged a hand down his face and reached for a scone, "Not my finest decision this month. At least I got to see Sherlock get tackled to the ground." He smiled at her confused look, "He threw a shoe at me and one of the men took him down."

Instead of commenting further, she simply shook her head and tapped a red-nailed finger on the files. "These are the most promising candidates for the Guardian position. I require your approval, of course, before submitting them to the R&D department. Also, I have chosen the name 'Anthea' for the next month."

"Very well, Anthea." He lifted the first file in one hand as she began pouring him a cup. "Do you have any recommendations?"

She nudged a cup of tea towards him. "I reserve the right to make them until after you have read the files yourself."

He looked at her over the top of the file for a moment, then took a deep breath and returned to his reading. Silence took over the room, and she sipped quietly at her tea while focusing back on her crossword. It wasn't long until his face displayed a frown, though she wasn't sure whether it was in concentration or in disgust. When he reached the final file, which she knew to be that of one Doctor John H Watson, she left her stylus in her hand and watched him through her lashes to gauge his expression.

Confusion was the first to cross his face, followed quickly by intrigue, and perhaps even a bit of fear. Soon, he sat forward, holding the file in both hands as he read. He looked up at her as he laid the file down on the desk and laced his fingers together. "Is this what I think it is, Anthea?"

"If you think it is the medical and psychological reports, and CV of an American Navy Doctor by the name of John H Watson, who also happens to be a genetically altered human being, then yes."

Mycroft re-read the file two more times, bringing his hands up to his mouth and leaning against them as he did. Then, he went through the electronic files she had sent him for each of the other files with record speed, and lingered over Watson's files with the same intrigued scrutiny. He then re-read everything again before closing the files, piling them up, lacing his fingers together, and giving her a very direct stare.

It was a short, tense moment before he stated, "These are the best Doctor Stamford could find?"

"Yes Sir."

"You told me you had recommendations."

"Of course, Sir." Anthea picked up her datalet and tapped over to her prepared notes. "These are, of course, my personal opinions."

"Your personal opinions are often better than those of the professionals in our employ."

Anthea accepted the flattery with a wry smirk. "The anger issues and medical issues of the Frenchman and the African concern me. Considering the skill set of Monsieur Monteblanc, those anger issues could easily develop into physical aggression. As for Ms Buhari, I would worry more for her health than anything else. Sherlock's sense of timing and regard for proper nutrition leave something to be desired."

He hummed in agreement, sipping at his tea. "I agree on both points. What is your opinion of the Russian?"

She chewed at her lip, then answered, "I see nothing wrong with his file, but something about him just doesn't feel right to me. I had the same reaction to the Czechoslovakian's file." She shrugged. "I wish I could explain it."

Waving a hand in dismissal, he said, "Don't trouble yourself, my dear. May I assume you agree with me that the Israeli and the Italian are suitably average?"

"Yes, I concur." Lacing her fingers together, she rested her elbows on the edge of the desk. "I must ask you, Sir, what your opinion is of the American."

Mycroft mirrored her stance, frowning. "It is a surprise, to say the least."

"You read my notation about Doctor Stamford's and Provost Marshal Lestrade's comments?"

"I did. I also watched the surveillance footage." Mycroft smirked a bit. "I cannot remember the last time I saw Sherlock shut up that quickly."

Anthea smiled. "Yes, nor have I ever seen him quit a room without having the last word."

"Yes. As the man said, 'It is a puzzlement'." At her lifted eyebrow, he shook his head and grinned smugly. "My mother was always a fan of musicals. Why do you think Sherlock had to learn the violin, and I had to learn piano?"

"I doubt Sherlock would ever quote a movie, no matter how well known, Sir." Her shoulders shook a bit with silent laughter.

Mycroft's frown returned, "Such things have probably long been deleted from Sherlock's conscious mind." He looked thoughtful for a moment, his eyes gazing into the distance. "Though, I believe I heard him play 'Shall We Dance' one Christmas not too long ago."

"Perhaps he's not a total loss after all then?"

"Don't get my hopes up, Anthea."

A chuckle passed her lips and she snagged half a scone. After two bites, she asked, "Shall I take the liberty of bringing the candidates in for a physical?"

"You may alert the medical team right away. I would like Doctor Stamford to oversee it. We shall start the physical exams as soon as possible. Send a message to the psychological team to prepare for their, and then we shall start the face-to-face interviews the weekend after both have finished. I won't have to worry about the agents watching Sherlock being distracted by other people if there is no one in the office." Mycroft poured himself another cup of tea and gulped it down, rubbing his temples in frustration.

Anthea tapped quietly away onto her screen, sending messages out to the evaluation teams, and notifying Sherlock's guards. Mycroft checked his emails, and the news, and accepted a dinner invitation as she worked. They worked smoothly and quietly, the perfect soother for the migraine Mycroft seemed to be nursing.

After half an hour, Anthea looked up from her screen. She waited until her employer did the same before speaking. "Doctor Stamford has confirmed that he will be available to head the physical exam team next week, and Doctor Ella Thompson is free to sit as our psychologist starting right away. The gentlemen at Baker Street have informed Master Holmes of the itinerary."

"Yes, I see that." Mycroft grimaced and leaned his datalet up for her to see a message that had recently arrived.

She raised an eyebrow and commented, "That's certainly a number of expletives I had no idea your brother was even aware of."

Mycroft groaned and rose up out of his chair, stating decisively, "I am going to the Diogenes Club for a bloody drink. I am not to be disturbed for anything less than the second coming. You will, of course, attend me for dinner with the senior under-secretary tonight at five o'clock."

"Of course, Sir. I shall see you then. Gerald is pulling the car around now."

He paused just before opening the door, "My dear, if this new Guardian finally proves to be the one that stays, you are getting two raises."

"I look forward to hiking up your spending budget, Sir."

* * *

In his dark flat in the middle of Marylebone in central London, Sherlock Holmes threw his datalet against the wall of his bedroom in enraged frustration. Where did his bloody brother get off dictating his life, anyway? Overbearing, pompous, cake-consuming bastard!

At the age of thirty, and just two years out of rehabilitation for cocaine and opiate use, Sherlock Holmes was a genius with a mind racing itself to a bullet-quick end. It felt like ever since he'd been forced into a long stint at a spa-like facility, just on the outskirts of Miami in America, for people who wanted to get over their addictions, his brother had been crushing him under the weight of his past indiscretions.

A knock at the door was followed by the sound of the knob turning and a soft exclamation by an elderly woman's voice. His landlady, Mrs Hudson, let herself in and took up a seat on his desk chair as he wrapped his dressing gown closer around him and rolled over on his bed. She crossed her feet at the ankles and tucked them to one side beneath the chair and folded her hands in her lap.

"Good evening, Sherlock dear." She continued speaking when he didn't bother acknowledging her. "Have you eaten at all today? I've got a lovely stew cooking downstairs that I could bring you."

He still did not speak. He didn't even bother sighing. She would give up soon enough.

"You can't keep going on like this, dear. I know how much you hate being bored. If you keep on like this, your going to go mad."

Sherlock fidgeted with the edge of his sleeve, still pretending to ignore her. It wasn't like she was saying anything different than what everyone else and their mother enjoyed pointing out to him constantly. Say 'thank you', Sherlock. Don't make the family of the murder victim cry, Sherlock. The oven is not a proper storage area for rat corpses, Sherlock.

"Maybe if you take a more active role this time with hiring your Guardian! You could show up for all the examinations and things, instead of just the personal interviews like you normally do. This time you might actually have the chance to make your opinion heard instead of just considered."

She had a point, and Sherlock hated to admit it.

"If nothing else," her sly tone was enough to finally penetrate his ennui, "you could annoy your brother for three whole days."

He finally rolled over and propped himself up on one elbow, his chin resting in his hand. There was a sly smirk on his landlady's face, and he answered it with an equally sly one of his own. "You are entirely too sly to be wasted as a landlady, Mrs Hudson."

She flattened imaginary wrinkles from her skirt with her hands. "Don't be silly, dear. Perhaps if you actually take an interest in the process, let them get to see you in action, maybe. Your brother still sees you as a little brother, not as a man. If you take the time to show him otherwise, perhaps he'll back off a bit."

Silently he considered her words, then popped up off his bed and made a shooing motion at her with his hands. She took the hint with a roll of her eyes and a fond little smile. As she took her leave, closing the door gently behind her, Sherlock searched out his battered datalet and checked it over for cracks. It was still in fine working condition, and nothing seemed wrong with it as he woke it up. Score one for fine British craftsmanship.

His first message was sent directly to his brother's secretary. She was, in his estimation, about twenty-five percent more likely to comply with his request than Mycroft. **Send me the schedule for the physical, psychological, and personal interviews. Also the candidate files. I will be joining my brother for all of the reviews. - SH**

After three minutes he received the schedule, but not the files, and a short reply. **Forgive me, Mr Holmes. I am unable to comply with your request for the candidate files without direct permission from my employer. Please apply to him.**

"I'm not asking that smug prat for anything," Sherlock grumbled to himself. He sent back, **Very well then. A list of the candidates' names, country or county of origin, and a summary of their skill set will suffice. - SH**

It was a half an hour later, as he was booby-trapping the flat's bathroom with plastic wrap to annoy his captors, that he received the list in short messages.

**1 – Richard Monteblanc – Rouen, France, Afro-Europe Coalition – Mercenary; specializes in knives. Cy-Ocu**

**2 – Chaka Bruhari – Enugu, Nigeria, Afro-Europe Coalition – Professional bodyguard; no specializations; high IQ. Cy-Ocu, -Aud**

**3 – Hugo Burian – Prague, Czechoslovakia, Ru-Asian Alliance – Ex-Military Police; specializes in threat assessment and exit strategy Cy-Aud, -Musc**

**4 – Pietr Volkov – Dedovsk, Russia, Ru-Asian Alliance – Ru-Asian Military defector; highly rated marksman. Cy-Ocu**

**5 – Matan Levy – Tel Aviv, Israel, New Persian Empire – Ex-Mossad, now Mercenary; no specializations. Cy-Ocu, -Aud, -Musc**

**6 – Giulia Laurino – Napoli, Italy, Afro-European Coalition – Ex-Esercito Italiano, rank Sergeant; no specializations. Cy-Ocu, -Aud, -Musc**

He sighed as he read, shaking his head over the unimpressive spread. As he went to put down his screen when a seventh message popped in. He hoped it wasn't from his brother. Lifting the screen back up, his eyes widened in surprise at the message's contents.

**7 – John H Watson, MD – Bohemia, New York, American Legion – Ex-Navy Hospital Corpsman First Class (equivalent of an Army Staff Sergeant); specializations in combat medicine, marksman with rifle and pistol - rated expert. Gen-A**

That name rang a bell, and he traced the memory back to the last arrest before he'd been incarcerated in his own flat. He had a vague impression of an angry, short, military man in a white sweatshirt stained with blood snapping orders at himself and his ex-Guardian. He remembered being surprised at the man's foresight – he had recovered a bullet from the injured Provost Officer that would be very damning evidence once Mr Holten was caught.

It was the last part of the message that really caught his eye. 'Gen-A' was not an abbreviation he was familiar with. It obviously wasn't a mistype; it was placed where the others had cybernetic enhancement indicators. He entered it into several different search engines, but none of them seemed to have viable suggestions. It wasn't until he used his brother's password to search the Department of Defence system that he found an answer in a brief message from a spy in the combat zone outside of Kandahar.

'Informant in the American Legion camp stationed outside of Kandahar reports that first unit of Gen-A soldiers has arrived. Unit is made up of ten SEAL- and Marine-trained soldiers, all with various related genetic anomalies. Unit boasts three stealth experts, two engineering experts, three communications experts, and two hospitalmen. All have expert marksmanship ratings. Each bear badges for completion of Parachutist and Diving training. More as information becomes available.'

"Genetic anomalies," Sherlock murmured to himself. A slow smile spread across his face as he searched for more information. While he searched, a message indication popped up on the corner of his screen. He didn't bother reading it until his wireless access suddenly cut off.

**Did you really think I wouldn't notice? - MH**

"Bastard."

_AN: __Here's a bit of a break down for everyone about the Supernations (in case you were curious):_

_The American Legion (AL) - Canada, the Bahamas, the Keys, the West Indies, the Galapagos, all of South America, Mexico, Central America, Greenland, and the United States. Faction Head - United States_

_The Afro-Europe Coalition (AEC) - all of Europe (including the United Kingdom but excluding Belarus and Latvia) up to and including the Netherlands, Madagascar, and all of Africa and its surrounding islands. Faction Head - England_

_The Ru-Asian Alliance (RA) - Russia Federation, India, China, North and South Korea, Tibet, Mongolia, Belarus, Latvia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Faction Head - China._

_The New Persian Empire (NPE) - Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, U.A.E., Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, basically all of the Middle East. Faction Head - (tentatively) Iraq._

_The Austro-Pacific Collective (APC) - Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, Malaysia, New Zealand, Tasmania, Australia, Hawaii, and Japan. Faction Head - Japan._

_If you don't see your country listed here, just think about where you're located in the world, and whatever countries are closest to you. That's which Supernation you belong to._


	3. They're Good, He's Great

_AN: Hello faithful readers! Thank you so much for sticking around. I had a bit of trouble with this chapter, but I managed to wrestle it into submission. I know the story seems to be going pretty slow, but I wanted to try my hand and turning this into a real, novel-esque kind of thing. I hope you'll bear with me and continue to encourage me and send me constructive criticism. I love and need it like air. Thank you all so much for reading!_

___Disclaimer- I do not own BBC Sherlock or any of its characters. I bow before the talented Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Gatiss, and Steven Moffat for the privilege of borrowing their characters for a bit of fun. Thank you, gentlemen, for sharing them with the world._

**Chapter 3: They're Good, He's Great**

_"__When you're good at something, you'll tell everyone. When you're great at something, they'll tell you." ~ Walter Payton_

Mycroft was surprised, to say the least, when Sherlock arrived in his office bright and early on the day of the psychological interviews. Anthea, it seemed, was not surprised at all – she brought in a tea tray with two cups and a plate of small sandwiches as if it wasn't an irregular occurrence. He gave his secretary a chastising smirk, which she answered with an innocent smile.

Without a word of greeting, Sherlock swept up the files in one hand and arranged them in a pile in alphabetical order. Flipping open the top one, he delved straight into the stream of information. There was a brightness to his pale eyes as they scanned the written words before him with greedy speed, and a very slight flush on his sharp cheeks. Mycroft knew that look as intimately as he knew his own name – Sherlock was interested in the facts before him, as invested in what they would reveal to him about the people they represented as if they were suspects in a murder.

"My goodness, brother," Mycroft said after a sip of tannin-filled, Earl Grey fortification. "Could it be you have finally decided to invest a modicum of concern in your own safety?"

Sherlock couldn't stop himself from taking such a blatant opening, "Could it be you finally developed a minute amount of willpower in regards to your pastry consumption?"

Well, so much for Sherlock having matured overnight. Mycroft pursed his lips but refused to respond to his brother's childish insult. Sighing to keep his temper in check, Mycroft poured his brother a cup of tea and placed it at the younger man's elbow. "Dr Thompson has just finished sending me the last of the psychological profiles. Shall I wait until you've finished devouring the personnel files before I begin reviewing them?"

It took a few seconds for Sherlock to swim out of the stream of data and look at his brother. Trying to play nice, after so many years of fraternal feuding, it was hard to break himself of the old, knee-jerk habits. What Mycroft had just gifted him with was an olive branch of sorts. He gritted his teeth and offered, "Perhaps you could give me your original opinions before we tackle the inner workings of the candidates' minds?"

One of Mycroft's eyebrows rose halfway up his forehead at such a concession. It seemed that his brother _was_ taking things seriously. "I've looked through all of their individual CVs, and they all seem to have very good backgrounds. Except for the gentlemen from Russia and Czechoslovakia, those with military backgrounds show no signs of disloyalty or insubordination. They all show ambition, integrity, and all seem of fairly average intellect."

Nodding, Sherlock turned back to the files. It was much easier to talk to his brother if he wasn't looking at him. "No causes for concern?"

Pursing his lips, Mycroft fiddled with his teacup and turned it around and around on its saucer. He didn't answer for a long enough time that Sherlock looked up again, brow furrowed in askance. Leaning back in his seat, Mycroft countered, "Are you looking for my personal judgements, or a general consensus?"

Sherlock peered down at the files before him, not really looking at the words. This could be either a turning, or a sticking point. If he asked for Mycroft's personal opinions, it could go one of two ways – his brother could continue to be a pompous, smug, know-it-all or they might finally reach some form of plateau. However, if he took the general consensus, he would lose the valuable data Mycroft had already personally garnered from each of the lives in written form he held in his hands.

He decided to take the former, in order not to lose the data, even if it might chip a bit off of his pride. He took a deep breath and looked his elder brother in the eye, stating, "Your personal opinions have more of a chance of being correct than than the conjecture of your countless minions."

Surprise was something Mycroft had been taught not to manifest. That did not stop his cup from rattling in its saucer as he placed it back on the table. His brother had just complimented him, in a way. He refused to smile as he gave a cordial nod of his head. "In that case," he leaned over and tapped out a command into his datalet screen. "I have just emailed you a copy of the psychological exams. I propose we go through each file, both the mental and written data, and work our way through them all at once."

"I find that proposal acceptable," Sherlock conceded. He moved back to the file of the African woman. "Ms Bruhari."

"Her intellect is above average, so she might be able to keep up with you mentally. She has a very well-rounded education, and skill set, but no specializations. My only concern is her diabetes. You can have quite an irregular schedule. I'm not sure that her health would not suffer."

Humming in agreement, Sherlock scanned the data from Dr Thompson. "According to Doctor Thompson, and I use that title loosely, Ms Bruhari has an almost desperate need to prove herself just as capable as anyone without diabetes."

"She also apparently didn't receive enough affection as a child." Mycroft sighed through his nose.

"I'm pretty sure all of these reports say that." Sherlock smirked. "Mr Burian?"

"He has a short history of non-compliance with certain weapon safety rules at his last command post." Mycroft pulled up his copies of the psychological profiles. "Dr Thompson seems to find him agreeable."

Sherlock propped his datalet up on its built-in stand, then leaned back in his seat and crossed his long legs. Balancing the next open file in his lap, he scoffed, "I wonder if Thompson bothered reading exactly which safety rules Mr Burian disregarded. Ms Laurino seems promising."

"Yes, very well-rounded skill set. She is of average intelligence, and I have it on good authority that she adapts quickly in unfamiliar situations." It took Mycroft a moment to scan the mental data. "Dr Thompson believes she exhibits sociopathic tendencies."

"So do I." Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock saw Mycroft take in a deep breath while closing his eyes – his brother's high-class version of an eye-roll. "Don't bother denying it. If you like, I could list all the symptoms I exhibit."

"I could also list the symptoms of Asperger's syndrome that you exhibit, but it does not follow that you truly have it." Mycroft poured himself a second cup of tea. "That being said, Ms Laurino's previous employers have also mentioned that she fails to realize when something is not considered socially acceptable. Considering your own history, I'm not sure she would be the best person for you to work with."

With a full, enthusiastic eye-roll, Sherlock grumbled, "Let me guess, you're afraid I shall pick up bad habits? Who are you? Mummy?"

Pursing his lips, Mycroft held back a scathing retort comparing Sherlock to their father. It would do nothing but set Sherlock off into an equally scathing tirade, and the momentary truce they found themselves in would vanish. Instead, he offered, "If you must have someone with high marks in all skills, then I suggest you choose Mr Levy. Unlike Ms Laurino, he seems quite socially respectable."

"He is also nearly fifty, has no specializations, and had declared himself retired about four years ago. He's an old gambler hurting for funds." Sherlock shook his head decidedly, "He is a 'no'."

Mycroft hummed softly, "He may be as you say. We shall see how he fares in the physical examinations before eliminating him out of hand. He may surprise you."

"I'm not eliminating him out of hand, I'm eliminating him because of exactly the reasons I just stated. The Frenchman I'm eliminating out of hand." With a scoff, Sherlock tossed the third-to-last file onto the floor.

"Mr Monteblanc is a perfectly acceptable choice," His elder brother lifted it back up with a sigh, but Sherlock cut off any further speech.

"He's a narcissistic psychopath with an obsession with blades that even I find unhealthy. Plus, he's French. I don't really think another reason is necessary."

"Sherlock," Mycroft leaned his head into his hand and massaged his forehead and temples, "nationality is never a valid reason to discount someone. Neither is race, gender, orientation, disability, or religious creed. I'm fairly sure we covered that in primary school."

Completely ignoring his brother, Sherlock stated, "Mr Volkov looks promising, or at least he would if he wasn't already a defector from his home country."

"Yes. I dislike defectors as much as I dislike spies, even though I may see the benefit of employing them." Finishing his cup of tea, Mycroft leaned back in his chair and poked ruefully at his datalet. "He does, however, possess a good-humoured and gregarious personality which might be to your benefit when dealing with the more unsavoury of London's underground."

"Doubtful. He's facetious, not gregarious, and will be about as mentally useful as I would be if you were to replace my mind with that of Lestrade's pet forensic, Anderson."

"He is charismatic," Mycroft sniffed, sounding offended. "Besides, considering how you seem to alienate every person you meet, such a personality might be helpful."

"I'm charismatic."

"Stop right there, Sherlock. We are doing very well; don't spoil it."

Grumbling, the younger Holmes dropped the file of Mr Volkov onto the table with a loud slap. He couldn't stop the slow spread of a smile as he lifted the seventh file into his hands. Sandwiched inside two halves of manilla material were the ink-and-paper answers he had been anticipating since he'd arrived.

Beside him, Mycroft let out a loud groan. "Please tell me that the American's file is not the only reason you are here at this moment?"

"Of course it isn't," Sherlock flapped a hand dismissively in his brother's direction. "But it is a welcome bonus."

Leaning back in his seat, Mycroft widened his eyes in mock disbelief. He was sure Sherlock noticed when his younger brother let out a loud huff of exasperation. Bringing up Dr Thompson's notes, Mycroft frowned as he read. "Trust issues, it says here. He suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder which manifests itself in the form of nightmares, a heightened sense of awareness of his surroundings that borders on paranoia, and psychosomatic pain in the leg and arm."

"Considering his medical history shows he was injured in the arm by a bullet, I highly doubt that pain is psychosomatic." A quiet silence fell between them for a moment, broken only by the susurrus of papers moving against each other. Suddenly, Sherlock looked over at his brother and asked, "Where are the scientific files? The ones that would detail the manipulations to which the American government subjected his DNA?"

Mycroft's upper lip curled slightly at the corner as his face contorted in an ugly, petulant frown. "The American Legion has been extremely uncooperative with our scientists at Baskerville. They have stone-walled our efforts to procure even a list of the supposed outcomes of their genetic research."

Whinging, Sherlock childishly impersonated a dead octopus; he flopped his arms and legs open in his seat and drooped. "Why are normal people so obstinate? You'd think that at some point they would understand such information is better off in the hands of someone more intelligent?"

"I've already pressed Dr Stamford into trying himself. I told him to stress the fact that he is Dr Watson's physician." There was a forlorn buzz as an incoming message filled Mycroft's screen. He pursed his lips unhappily as he read. "It seems the good doctor has more integrity than I expected."

A snort from the seat beside him called Mycroft's attention. Sherlock rolled his head against the back of the plush chair to look his brother in the eye. "Yes, Dr Stamford can have quite a backbone when it comes to some things."

"So it would seem." Flicking his stylus over his screen, Mycroft pulled up a spreadsheet and copy-pasted the names of each candidate into it, then added columns for personal observations, psychological pros and cons, physical deficiencies/disabilities, marksmanship ratings, and miscellaneous notations. "My assistant did notify you that tomorrow would be the physical examinations?"

"Yes, and the marksmanship test, and the ingenuity test. I don't know why you bothered to make them all on the same day. We probably won't even get through them all."

"That's why I have them arriving at eight o'clock and not ten," Mycroft stated as he filled in his chart. "It is my hope that some of them will eliminate themselves before the physical, and perhaps even during it."

Sherlock knew by Mycroft's smug expression that his elder brother had taken note of the sly grin that had overtaken his face. "Who knew you could be so devious, brother dear. All these years of Mummy telling everyone that I was the one to keep an eye on and here you are."

"I am calculating, thank you, not devious. You, however, definitely need looking after. Shall I remind you of the Blackberry Incident?"

The younger Holmes sat up ramrod straight in his chair, the nostrils of his aquiline nose flaring as his cheeks blotched red in rage. "That was ten years ago, you fat partridge, and we agreed never to mention it again!"

Outside the room, Anthea looked up at the door as two baritone voices rose in a shouting match. Sighing deeply, she glanced at the time displayed on her screen and then returned to her current crossword puzzle. Beside her, one of Sherlock's four government-issue nannies looked up over her head at the door.

After several long moments, he asked, "Suppose we should break them up?"

"Don't even think about it," she placed a hand on his knee as he shifted to get up. "This is the most exercise the two of them have had in about a month. They'll wear themselves out eventually."

The guard seemed to think about that, and then relaxed back into his seat with a conspiratorial smile. The secretary brought them both a cup of tea and a tray of biscuits, and handed off the morning paper to the guard. They sat that way in silence for another hour before the door flew open and Sherlock stormed out in a whirl of high-quality wool.

* * *

Doctor John H Watson, MD, was no stranger to physical examinations, medical or otherwise, but that didn't mean he enjoyed them. After living most of his life almost literally under a microscope, followed by years of rigorous physical tests of his endurance, stamina, and limitations, he was sick to death of doctors and machines and his own damn file. At least this time, in this nondescript government building in the middle of London, there was a friendly face among the medical personnel.

Mike Stamford beamed brightly as John entered the waiting room. As far as John could see, his was the only friendly face in the room. The other technicians and assistants looked too young or too jaded to even be wearing a lab coat. Even the other candidates looked unhappy to be awake at that hour of the morning.

He had thought that he was one of seven possibilities, but there were only three other non-personnel bodies in the room besides himself. One was a stockily built black woman, and the other two were large white men with the broad shouldered, slim-hipped physiques of soldiers. At least he and the woman were of a height – the other two men had to top six feet – so he didn't feel as ridiculous as he usually would when he was one of the shortest people in a room. It seemed he was the last person to have arrived, and the clock showed it was already a quarter to eight.

"Good morning, everyone," Mike stepped forward and rubbed his hands together before clasping them in front of his rotund stomach. "Just so we're all on the same page, I would like to inform you that we'll be starting the first round of tests in about fifteen minutes."

"How long is this going to take us in total?" The black woman asked. John could hear the cadence of a non-English language in her speech. She planted her hands on her wide hips, frowning. "Some of us have other things to do."

"That is true," said the dark-haired man. The glottal roll of his 'r' pronounced him a Frenchman. "I have a lunch engagement." He smirked. "And a dinner engagement."

"You can only jerk off so many times," the huge blond retorted. His smile was wide, even as his Russian mouth forced out the consonants of the English tongue. "You'll chafe yourself."

"Or I'll chafe your mother's throat," the Frenchman growled out.

The African woman let out an unladylike snort and rolled her chocolate eyes until they connected with John's snow-leopard-grey ones. While the Russian snapped a comment back at the Frenchman, John let his sandy brows rise halfway up his forehead as a smirk tugged the left corner of his mouth up. She answered his look with a silent chuckle, turning her face away to hide the her smile as her broad shoulders and ample chest shook with mirth.

Clapping loudly, Stamford called the attention in the room back to him. "How about instead of arguing, I tell you what you can look forward to in the next few hours?"

The Russian and the Frenchman grumbled and shot morose looks at one another, but they sat down again without a fuss. John leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees while lacing his fingers together before him. The African woman sat up straight, her posture perfect, with her hands folded in her lap.

"Right," Mike smiled at them all. "First we'll be taking biological fluid samples from each of you. After that, we will be taking you down to the shooting range in the basement for a marksmanship test. Following that, you will be lead back upstairs and there will then be an hour break for lunch. After that, you will be directed to the gymnasium for a fitness test and an obstacle course. Once finished, you have the option to shower and change here if you wish. On your way out, you'll be given a slip of paper with the date and time for your personal interview, and off you go." The doctor beamed again. "Are there any questions?"

A raised hand from the Frenchman was followed by the words, "Will you be taking a sample of _all_ our biological fluids?"

Mike rolled his eyes in irritation while the Russian snickered and John hung his head between his shoulders and shook it. Stamford didn't even bother answering the question. John made the mistake of looking up again, right into Mike's face. There was an odd look on the doctor's features, and John realised that Stamford's frowning gaze was focused on his mouth. Self-conscious, John ran the tip of his tongue over his front teeth from canine to canine.

"If you'll all follow me, we can get started."

With Stamford leading the pack, they entered a long exam room with ten chairs built specifically for the purpose of drawing blood were lined up against one wall. Opposite them was a long table, with four neat piles of sample jars and vials in various sizes every three feet. John headed straight for a chair and dropped into the seat.

The laboratory technicians were a diverse lot. One woman, an Asian with chin-length hair and a small diamond piercing winking in her nose, pushed a urine sample jar into the hands of the Frenchman and pointed him to a bathroom door. She completely ignored his flirtatious request that she help him collect the sample. Beside her, the young man with flaming red hair and a spatter of freckles over his thin nose gathered up a wrapped q-tip and moved towards the Russian. He gave his colleague a sympathetic look as he moved past her.

John's tech was a very masculine looking Indian woman, whose deft hands were covered in dark lines of henna. She gave him a perfunctory smile as she strapped a tourniquet around his upper arm and swabbed his inner elbow with a piece of cotton. One seat over, the African was being ordered to open her mouth by a dark-haired man with skin the colour of a freshly baked pretzel.

It was very much like a dance, the way the technicians moved around each other, going from chair to table and back again. No one stumbled or slipped or bumped into each other. John wondered if they had been working together long, or if perhaps they were just used to working in a similar environment.

When the sample jars were all filled and the candidates were standing up to move along to the elevator that would take them down to the range, Mike Stamford reappeared looking a little out of breath. In his hand he held another sample jar with a thin, strong piece of rubber stretched over the mouth and secured with a rubber band. He walked straight up to John with an apologetic smile.

"Boss's orders," Mike shrugged. "I need you to bite this."

Pursing his lips, John took the jar in hand and glared at it. Somewhere nearby, the Frenchman chuckled and said, "Poor little man, mouth too dry to provide a proper sample?"

Irked by the other man's attitude, John glanced over at him and snarked, "I've got more than enough saliva to spit in your face, Pierre."

"Small men are like small dogs," the Frenchman shot back. "Their bark is always worse than their bite."

John locked a predatory stare into the other man's eyes, and he let a thin smile spread over his mobile features. His voice was cold and matter-of-fact, "My bite is venomous."

A short growl rose out of John's throat as he bit forcefully through the material. The silence afterword stretched out uncomfortably long as an amber liquid slowly dripped from his canine teeth into the jar. When it was one quarter full, John unlocked his jaw from the bite and handed the bottle over to Dr Stamford.

Even the technicians looked unnerved as John traced the edges of his straight, white teeth with his tongue before covering them with his lips and smiling amicably. Mike skirted around him with a furtive side-long glance, keeping a good half a metre of distance from him as he added the jar to John's samples. Only the African woman seemed to recover, giving him a smirk and a nod; one predator appreciating the skill of another.

Smirking to himself as Mike took the lead again, John followed the technicians and his fellow candidates to a wide, freight elevator. With the exception of the African woman and Stamford, they all kept as far away from him as the physical confines of the lift would allow. That was fine with John; technically he wasn't there to be liked.

"I'm Chaka, by the way," the African woman said. She held out a hand for him to shake.

John shook it firmly, "John."

"You should be careful," the Russian turned to them both. "Today's comrades could be tomorrow's enemy."

Before he even realized that he'd opened his mouth, John retorted, "Said the Ruski."

The much larger blond man looked surprised before letting out a booming laugh. "Political humour? High-brow, coming from an American pig."

"Fart and dick jokes can only get you so far," John answered back with a shrug. "Besides, I'd rather smell like honest bacon than like red herring."

A loud burst of laughter followed, from both the Frenchman and the Russian, which seemed to dissolve all the tension in the lift. The Russian held out a slab of a hand and thrust it at John. "I am Pietr."

"Pleasure to meet you," John gave the other man a hearty shake and a grin.

Chaka also took her turn to shake hands with the jovial giant, "I'd rather have to face an enemy with a friendly disposition than a friend with a grudge. We might as well treat each other as friends until we are forced to do otherwise."

"Unlike you," the Frenchman scoffed, "I am here to show that I am the best man for the job. I feel no need to make friends with any of you."

"In that case, Pierre, we will continue to think you are a waste of our time," Pietr winked at John, who answered the allusion to the earlier insult with a quiet chuckle.

When the door opened, Mike moved out into the dark hall and motioned for them to follow. The technicians stayed behind, probably heading back up to set up the floor where the fitness test would take place. About ten feet down the hall was a grey door, in front of which stood a barrel-chested man in urban camouflage. Mike stopped a few feet short of the man and waited until the candidates had all lined up behind him.

"Range Conducting Officer Bryson, these are the candidates for the Guardian position. I leave them in your care."

Bryson crossed his arms over his broad chest as Dr Stamford turned around and returned to the lift. He gave each of the people before him a piercing, measuring look before speaking. "Good morning. Welcome to the Homefront Indoor Range. This is an Airsoft-handgun-only range, and as such you will be supplied with a gas powered RedWolf Custom G17 3rd Gen CNC metal replica of a Glock 17. You will also be supplied with safety goggles and ear muffs, both of which will be worn at all times inside the range." He turned sideways and gestured for them all to follow.

Inside the first room, where normally there would be someone standing by to issue or sell equipment, there was just a long table with the equipment already set out. While they all tested the weapons, Bryson continued to speak. "You will be given four real-capacity magazines with seventeen shots each. The first three magazines will be fired at the distances of twenty-three metres, six and a half metres, and fourteen metres, in that order and without the activation of any additional sight-enhancing techniques. The last magazine will be used to test your accuracy with sight enhancement, and how many rounds you use compared to how many accurate kill shots you make at a range of forty-seven metres."

They lined up before the air lock door, and put on their safety goggles. Before they donned their ear muffs, Bryson held up a hand. "There will be no cowboy-style or combat shooting in this exercise. This is an accuracy test only. Any trick shooting or childish actions will be considered an immediate disqualification."

Duly warned, they pulled on their ear muffs. John sneered a bit, uncomfortable with the dulling of his sense of hearing. If it went on for too long, it would make him even more uncomfortable, as his other senses tended to compensate very quickly. It was a wonderful skill in a combat situation, but it could quickly become inconvenient in a normal place like a shooting range. Setting his irritation aside, he followed Pietr into the range.

It was a very large anechoic chamber, brightly lit, with about a hundred or so lanes separated by thick foam barriers. Each candidate was positioned an empty lane away from the others. A stack of paper targets were hung on the side of the shooting booth beneath a red light bulb, and one was already hanging at the prepared twenty-three metre distance. John chewed on his lower lip as he raised his weapon in the ready position.

When the red light turned on, John focused on his target and fired three shots at the torso of the silhouette. They pierced just left of the centre of the target's chest, which informed John the non-lethal weapon had the same pull to the left that a real Glock 17 always seemed to have. Rocking his head until he felt his spine crack, John adjusted his aim and stance, then emptied the magazine.

When he'd finished, he pressed the button on the wall opposite the stack of targets and brought the hole-riddled silhouette back to him. He was rather proud that each bullet had successfully pierced through both of the 'X' marks of the target. Not one bullet out of place.

He handed off the finished target to Bryson, who handed him another clip, but signalled for him to wait. Chaka was the next person to finish, followed by Pietr and the Frenchman at the same time. Bryson gave them each their clips, and then indicated they could all return for the next target distance.

The six and a half metre and the fourteen metre distance followed the same protocol, and John was glad and proud that he was still living up to his expert marksmanship rating. Shooting at a paper target in a controlled environment wasn't exactly hard; John was just glad not to feel his healed shoulder complain. He was more worried about how it would hold up during the fitness round of testing.

Before giving them their fourth magazine, Bryson waited until they were all gathered before him and then indicated with a finger for them to remove their hearing protection. They all removed them gingerly. John cringed at the return of his hearing, but gave the Range Officer his full attention.

"We will be using a rapid-fire testing set up for the next test. The silhouettes are made of metal with cut-outs at the usual scoring denominations. Micro-sensors will detect the passage of each round. Your score will be recorded and uploaded to my datalet, where I will add it to your other scores and send it directly to my employer."

They all nodded and replaced their earmuffs. Chaka gave John and Pietr a thumbs-up, which they both returned, and tapped her temples before they disappeared into their booths. John knew she, Pietr, and the Frenchman had to have the cybernetic implants most people with militaristic backgrounds were given. He almost pitied them – they might be able to magnify their vision by four or five times, but they would never see as well as John could. With the DNA coding for his vision copied from that of eagles, John could see a whopping eight times the normal magnification of a human; even in a helicopter hovering fifteen thousand feet in the air, John could spot a rabbit in a field.

Shooting at a target forty-seven metres away still presented a small problem. The guns they were using were only considered 'accurate' at about forty-five metres. It seemed to be more of a test of their ability to cope with the limitations of their equipment, rather than their marksmanship.

When the red light came on, John started firing. He focused on the head of the silhouette, figuring it was the quickest way to kill a person. It was a smaller target, but it was also very effective; a head-shot was ninety-nine point nine percent guaranteed to kill. He didn't waste any time emptying the magazine.

The Frenchman was the first one to finish, but John was not far behind him. Chaka and Pietr followed closely after, finishing at nearly the same moment. Officer Bryson nodded at them all in turn and indicated for them to exit the range.

Once outside the room, Officer Bryson gestured for them to remove their headgear, which they all returned to the table. As they disassembled their weapons, Bryson stated, "Thank you all for your time. You now have an hour for lunch and then you will meet Dr Stamford in the lab waiting room. He'll be taking you up to the gymnasium for the fitness testing."

They made their way back to the lift, and Pietr slung an arm around John's and Chaka's shoulders. "I know of a wonderful Indian restaurant about a ten minute walk from here."

"I was thinking Italian, but Indian will do," Chaka smirked at them both. "Provided of course it does not prove too spicy for you pale faces."

John snorted, "I spent the latter half of my life in the Afghan desert surrounded by soldiers who thought secretly putting ghost peppers in each other's food was a fun time. I'm surprised I even have taste buds left."

Pietr laughed jovially, "Then мы идем! We go, yes?"

John and Chaka nodded, both smiling amicably up at the large Russian. They all ignored the pointedly loud way the Frenchman began speaking rapidly in his native tongue into his Bluetooth headset, obviously chatting up his lunch date. Chaka turned to John, one brow raised and asked, "So, Afghanistan?"

* * *

The Department of Defence Fitness Centre was a huge marvel of engineering. There was the usual gymnasium equipment, like free weights and various muscle building machines and treadmills, but there was also a series of military-grade obstacle courses and a testing laboratory. It was kept borderline immaculate by a small army of custodians and robots, and a series of anti-bacterial and anti-viral 'baths' hooked into the overhead sprinkler systems.

Sherlock hated it. It was all fine and dandy for the purpose of measuring some of a person's limits, but it didn't have the real-world variables necessary to test other factors that could make or break a case or a person. There was no change in temperature, no weather patterns, there wasn't even dirt! Racing against a clock might increase a heart rate, but it didn't have the same rush from an adrenaline-fuelled chase over rooftops after an armed murderer. Without adding those variables, the brain chemicals or the terrain changes or the danger, to the measurement there was just no value to the tests.

"Stop sighing, Sherlock." Mycroft leaned a little closer into his brother's personal space. "You sound constipated, and you're making the scientists edgy."

"They should be edgy. This should really be only the first of many fitness examinations, and not _the_ fitness exam. They know that and it should chafe at their metaphorical souls."

The smirk that appeared on Mycroft's face made Sherlock want to commit fratricide in a violent and inelegant fashion. His elder brother dryly quipped, "How very poetically put, brother dear. Perhaps you've missed your true calling."

"Shut up, Mycroft."

Through a series of monitors, they watched Dr Stamford, his small team of lab assistants, and two very burly looking Army Lieutenants put the four candidates through their paces. Mr Monteblanc was as lithe as he looked, but his balance wasn't as good as Ms Bruhari's. Mr Volkov was a mountain of muscle, and though he was at least two stone heavier than any of the others, he still kept up in speed. Dr Watson was a surprise – his sturdy, stocky frame kept up well with his longer-legged counterparts, and he didn't seem nearly as winded as they were at the end of the second run through.

Sherlock frowned as the four candidates caught their breath. The Frenchman stood aloof, but the other three seemed to have formed a tenuous sort of friendship. It appeared that they were taking the short break to chat as well as cool down. He watched as a wide grin spread over Watson's face at something the Russian had stated while gesturing wildly, and the African threw her head back in laughter.

"We're moving on to the endurance and stamina testing, Sherlock. Come along." Mycroft lead him down a few narrow hallways to the equipment room.

Four treadmills had been set up, the spaces between them filled with medical equipment for monitoring cardiopulmonary functions. They were all connected to single monitor and tower, which had been discretely set up in a corner of the room. It was already powered up and humming gently, the medical data programs all showing steady, flat lines to any observers. Sherlock ignored the room as a whole, focusing instead on the doorway through which the candidates were finally entering.

Monteblanc strutted in first, a careless smirk pasted across his face. His eyes were more shrewd than curious, and he took note of all the doors in the room warily. His mouth drooped into a rather impressive frown as one of the technicians ushered him onto a treadmill and otherwise completely ignored him. He removed his shirt and stated a lewd comment, which was also ignored, as the lab assistant connected the sensors to his lithe chest.

_[Frenchman, obviously. Walks with a slight hitch in his gait – spinal curve is slightly misshapen – possibly due to injury in childhood, or perhaps a mild form of scoliosis that was never fully corrected. Nails manicured, uses expensive hair product that smells like sandalwood, patchouli, and myrrh, fake tan – cares about his appearance. Puffs his chest out to display the bullet and knife wounds on his torso and stomach – show-off, proud of his close calls with death. Exaggerated gesturing when speaking innuendo to women, aggressive gestures towards other men – Heterosexual, and unattached (not at all surprising – his language is chauvinistic and his tone is patronizing). Conclusion: __**NO**__.]_

Volkov was placed to the Frenchman's right, and shrugged before asking if he should also remove his shirt. The assistant shrugged and gestured that it was his decision, and the Russian shrugged again before pulling off his shirt. His wide, friendly smile never wavered as he stepped up onto the machine. He leaned carelessly against the instrument panel at the front of the treadmill, causing it to creak alarmingly. He took note of all the entrances and exits with a glance, then took up a pose that looked more relaxed than it was.

_[Russian, but his accent indicates Crimean upbringing. Heavy musculature, weighs probably half a stone more than he appears – trained to be an Olympic Weightlifter before being drafted into the military. Hated the workouts, but is proud of the results. Dyes his hair dark brown; slight orange tint at the hairline and around the eyebrows – he's turning grey but isn't ready to give up the appearance of youth. No hair product, subtle but strong cologne is noticeable but not overpowering, shirts are half a size too small to show off his physique, no manicure, tan is natural but kept up with the help of machines instead of natural sunlight – cares about how others see him enough to put effort into appearance but there is no personal vanity behind it. Not showing off old wounds, but posture suggests he is trying to actively deter anyone admiring or inquiring about them. Engaging and friendly gestures and expressions – the 'jolly giant' approach – more likely to try and diffuse tense situations with humour or gregariousness. Openly admiring of women, pays no attention to men except to note their placement in the room – heterosexual but not overbearing, unattached. Conclusion: No – too chatty, too friendly. Annoying. No.]_

Watson was placed to the Volkov's right, and he didn't remove his shirt. He rocked his head from side to side a bit on his neck, then placed his right hand on his left shoulder and pushed as he stretched his neck again in the opposite direction. There was a quiet 'pop' from the joint and he rotated his shoulder once as if to check it was still working. Unlike the others, who were having sensors placed on them by the lab assistants, Watson placed his own sensors expertly on himself beneath his clothes, getting a big smile and a thumbs up from Stamford, who stood behind the desk in the corner of the room.

_[American, accent is soft and carefully hidden by precise enunciations and possibly word choice; he speaks deliberately slower than his speech pattern indicates is his normal rate– has been on the wrong side of negative reactions to either his pronunciation or his speed. Good posture, probably from military training. Hair is blond and going prematurely grey (perhaps white, hard to tell from this distance) and styled with just enough product to hold it in place; no cologne, no manicure, tan is natural (previously noted) – minimalist, possibly does not favour products with scents due to his own heightened sense of smell. Bullet wound in the left shoulder mentioned in medical report. Without seeing it, cannot ascertain extent of damage. Scar tissue probably gets a troublesome ache in colder or damper weather. Calm demeanour leans towards friendliness; previous exposure shows he is fully capable of diffusing tense situations verbally – physical tests so far show he is fit enough to be useful in a fight. Keeps watchful eye on all entrances, exits, and people within the room. Keeps staring at Ms Bruhari – heterosexual and interested, unattached. Conclusion: Maybe – think of the possibilities for experimentation.]_

Bruhari was lead to the final set up, and stripped her shirt off to reveal a sports bra with an exaggerated bounce of her eyebrows aimed at one of the female assistants. She rolled her eyes at the catcalls from Volkov and Monteblanc, gracing them with a swift two-finger salute. Watson grinned at her and let out a bark of laughter when she winked saucily at him. She stood patiently as a technician attached her set of sensors, rocking slightly on her heels. Watson cocked his head at her a bit, frowning slightly, but her wide smile seemed to allay whatever worry was troubling him. She placed her hands on either side of the instrument panel of the treadmill and put her weight against it, then rocked her hips side to side until her spine popped quietly.

_[African – Accent is from Nigeria, but the cadence suggests she speaks Zulu with some degree of familiarity. Good posture – probably helps with any back problems that might be attributed to the weight of her breast tissue, and also helps her appear taller than she is. Hair is natural, braided into corn rows – probably the lowest maintenance style she can keep up with. No make-up, minimal perfume scented like orchids, clear nail polish on manicured nails – takes just enough pride in her appearance to appear professional but not vain. Keeps an eye on the entrances, exits, and people in the room but pays nothing any specific attention. Exchanges flirtatious glances and actions with men but reserves displays of actual interest for females – Lesbian, unattached. Conclusion: Maybe – intelligence is a plus but Diabetes may cause complications.]_

Mycroft and Sherlock stalked their way around to where Mike Stamford stood sentry over the main computer. As they loomed behind him, Dr Stamford gave the signal to begin the testing, and a loud whirr rose up from the machines as they switched on at a steady walking pace. Sherlock turned his face in the direction of the monitor, but really his eyes were focused on the candidates.

Volkov, Watson, and Bruhari continued to banter back and forth, chatting about something to do with whether it was heat or flavour that actually made food spicy, probably a conversation they were continuing from lunch. Sherlock remembered that they had all arrived for the fitness tests at the same time, smelling faintly of curry and prattling together as if they were old friends. It gave him a bit of satisfaction, seeing that the Frenchman had ostracised himself from the others – he had known the man would not be a team player. He cast a smug grin over to his brother, and Mycroft's upper lip curled into a sneer.

"Try to keep your opinions to yourself at least until the interviews," Mycroft murmured, leaning closer to his brother in order not to be overheard.

Schooling his features back into its customary mask of aloof indifference, Sherlock let a glimmer of mischief fill his eyes as he turned his gaze back to the monitor. He heard Mycroft take a deep breath into, and let it out of, his nose, which was the closest his brother ever got to a sigh of exasperation while in public. It was a small victory.

One of the machines beeped loudly, and Watson's head turned quickly towards Bruhari, whose pace was slowing down significantly as her skin gained an ashen tint. Two of the lab technicians converged on her, and Watson barked out to Dr Stamford, "Get some Glucagon now, she's hypoglycaemic."

Mike flipped the switch to turn off the machines, and rushed to the well-stocked first aid kit set up over in the corner. It had everything in it from antihistamines to Naloxone, and he yanked out the orange coloured kit that Watson had demanded with impressive speed. Watson, who was already off his machine and helping the technicians lower Ms Bruhari to the floor, looked up just as Stamford whistled sharply. He caught the package tossed at him and had it open nearly as soon as it was in his hand.

Sherlock watched as Watson and the lab assistants worked in tandem. The assistants double checked Bruhari's pulse rate and blood sugar level, while Watson put together the medicine and injected it directly into her thigh. Stamford swept away the packaging and snatched the empty injector as soon as Watson held it up. On the monitor, Watson's read-outs showed barely a blip of change, as if he had known something was going to happen.

As an emergency crew arrived and started hooking Ms Bruhari up to more equipment, Watson moved out of the way and leaned back against a wall. He watched the crew with a critical eye, but said nothing except an affirmation that he was the one who had injected the drug. Sherlock took the opportunity to sidle up next to him.

"You knew this was going to happen," Holmes stated matter-of-factly. He followed it up with a hard stare and a deeply intoned, "How?"

Watson glanced over and up at him, pale brows contracting in puzzlement. "I don't know what you mean?"

"You've been watching her surreptitiously, with the exception of the moment she acknowledged your worried glance, since you entered the room. Your vitals showed no spikes in heart rate or lung function that would hint at an additional jump in your adrenaline levels that would have occurred if the incident had been unexpected. You knew that something was wrong with her, and you knew exactly which method was needed to alleviate her condition. Now I will ask you again, how?"

The stare-down that followed made Sherlock a bit nervous, if he was being honest with himself. He had faced down psychopaths that hunted other people for the sheer sport of it, but they had never given him a pause like staring into the multi-faceted blue-grey eyes of Doctor John Watson. People often allude to feeling like a mouse caught before the jaws of a lion, but Sherlock had never believed he would literally feel like the prey to a predator. He might have felt less as if he might potentially become a dinner course than if he'd been dumped weaponless into the crocodile exhibit at the zoo after no one had bothered to feed the reptiles for a week.

In his adult life Sherlock Holmes, up until then, had never been the first person to look away from a stare. Not that he would admit it; if asked he would just say he was making sure he was out of the way of the ambulance crew carrying Ms Bruhari out of the room. In fact, he made sure to deliberately follow the path of the ambulance crew with his eyes to put the truth behind that. He was so focused on making the action look as natural as possible that he almost didn't hear Watson speak.

"Ketones."

Sherlock immediately turned back to look at Watson's face, "What?"

Sighing loudly, Watson rubbed the side of his nose with a finger as he turned to watch the door shut behind the emergency crew and their patient. "Ketones, are a chemical compound that appears in blood chemistry when glucose levels are low enough that the body starts to break down fats instead of sugar to make energy."

"I know what they are, what do they have to do with how you knew Ms Bruhari was suffering from hypoglycaemia?" Sherlock snapped.

Watson's reply was calm, "Ketones give off a fruity scent."

A realization dawned on Sherlock and a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, "Which you could smell."

A nod was Watson's only reply. Sherlock turned away and sidled back up to his brother. Mycroft was just putting the finishing touches on an incident report, which he would eventually add into both Watson's and Bruhari's files. His elder brother didn't even bother to look away from the screen while blandly stating, "No."

"We're doing his individual interview now."

"Sherlock, I said no."

"Fine, tomorrow then. Afternoon tea time. We'll even have scones." Sherlock gave his brother what might have been a winning smile if they weren't brothers.

Mycroft dragged a deep breath into his nose, his eyes closing as he let it out slowly. When he opened them again, Sherlock still had that ridiculous sham of a smile on his face. The elder Holmes narrowed his eyes briefly, then relented, "If he shows even a hint of reluctance, or I find anything in his answers objectionable, I will disqualify him on the spot."

"Stamford!" Sherlock shouted across the room. The doctor looked over at him, shocked and a bit confused, from where he stood beside Watson near the wall. Everyone in the room was staring at the younger Holmes, who gave the room an oddly unsettling grin. "Tell Watson his interview is tomorrow, four o'clock sharp, at Mycroft's office. You know the address."


	4. It Starts Happening

_AN: Hello again everyone! I've been hard at work - as you can see. Here's another chapter to wet your whistles! Please remember that comments and critiques help keep my creative engine flowing! Thank you everyone for reading!_

_Disclaimer: __I do not own BBC Sherlock or any of its characters. I bow before the talented Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Gatiss, and Steven Moffat for the privilege of borrowing their characters for a bit of fun. Thank you, gentlemen, for sharing them with the world._

**Chapter 4: It Starts Happening**

_"If things start happening, don't worry, don't stew, just go right along and you'll start happening too." - Dr Seuss_

On the small screen of his datalet, Mycroft watched his personal assistant (Theresa this month) lead Doctor John H Watson through the corridors of his office floor. Seated across from him, Sherlock was scribbling furiously on his datalet, plotting out a number of scientific experiments that he would be able to perform with Watson as their subject. A beautiful royal blue china tea service sat between them on a silver platter, and a silver three-tiered server held an assortment of small sandwiches, scones, and fruit.

Watson had obviously put forth some sort of effort for the interview; he was wearing a tasteful, if bland, two-piece, chocolate-brown, tweed suit with a similarly coloured tie and a khaki shirt. It wasn't a brand new suit, and it had obviously never been tailored, but it had definitely not seen much wear. He might have looked a bit dapper even, if the colour scheme had been more flattering and he had looked less like a sergeant from World War II stepping out of the history pages.

Theresa directed him to a chair outside and entered the office alone. Her nude, high-heeled pumps thumping authoritatively on the carpet. Mycroft looked up at her, but Sherlock did not. "Doctor Watson is outside, Sir. Shall I send him in now or would you like to wait a few minutes?"

"Send him in," Sherlock murmured, tapping a few more times on his screen. "We're wasting valuable time that I could be using to prepare more experiments."

"For the last time, Sherlock," Mycroft poured himself a cup of tea and rubbed his temple as he stirred sugar into it. "We are hiring him as your protector, your bodyguard, and also your battlefield medic, if necessary. We will assess his abilities with those skills in mind, not his potential as a subject for experimentation. Besides, there is still the ingenuity test to consider."

"Don't be ridiculous, Mycroft. You and I both know we are going to hire him." Sherlock didn't even bother looking up from his screen. "That test has no real-world value as it is; you just like watching people scurry about in a controlled environment."

Sucking a deep breath in through his nose and letting it out through his teeth with a quiet huff, Mycroft glanced almost pleadingly at his assistant. Theresa's pink-stained lips twitched in a very unsympathetic smirk before she closed the door and went to fetch Dr Watson. She returned in moments, and both Mycroft and Sherlock could hear her almost sarcastic stage whisper of 'good luck' as the doctor strode into the room.

Both Holmes brothers watched through their lashes as Doctor Watson approached the desk, his steps as precise as a military march. The doctor stood quietly and brought his arms around his back to clasp his right fist in his left hand. The stance reminded Sherlock of the at-ease position he'd seen many of Mycroft's guards and soldiers take up.

Mycroft gave an idle tap to his datalet screen, as if he were closing a program, before looking up at the subject of their interview. Sherlock had to fight his reaction to roll his eyes at his elder brother's dramatics. Watson just tilted his head very slightly to one side and waited.

"Good afternoon, Doctor Watson. Please have a seat." Mycroft gestured to the empty chair beside Sherlock. As the doctor sat, his back and shoulders set perfectly straight, Sherlock cast his eyes over him. Mycroft drew the third tea cup towards him and asked, "Do you take sugar and milk?"  
"Yes, Sir. Just one sugar is fine."

The cup was passed over, perfectly prepared, and Sherlock noted that John accepted and sipped from it left-handed. The brothers allowed him a few moments of quiet in which to fortify himself with tea. After a few swallows, Dr Watson placed his cup and saucer carefully onto the desk – it didn't even rattle. If he was nervous, it wasn't showing.

"I am Mycroft Holmes, Head of Defence for England's Homefront and the Military of the Afro-European Coalition. I understand that you are already, albeit briefly, acquainted with my brother, Sherlock?" Mycroft indicated Sherlock with a fluid wave of his hand. Watson nodded, but stayed quiet, his expression indicating mild interest. Mycroft continued, "Very well. You understand that you are here as an applicant for the post of Guardian for my brother?"

"If you'll forgive me," Watson's voice was courteous and apologetic, "what exactly does this post entail?"

Sherlock closed his eyes as his brother raised an elegant eyebrow disdainfully. Mycroft lifted his datalet dramatically and brought the screen back to life, pulling up his notes from the psychological report. "My brother occupies a position of our own design, wherein he is free to follow his own pursuits under the guise of consulting with the Homefront Provosts. Occasionally he also performs tasks for me, but such times are few and far between. As both of these undertakings usually involve threats to his physical well-being, I created the post of Guardian to act as his personal bodyguard. As his Guardian, you would take up lodgings within my brother's flat, and attempt to keep him safe from the various threats to his health and well-being that occur with alarming frequency during his daily life. Even when he is not on a case with the Provosts, there are still very real criminal threats to his person. You may also be required to act as a field medic depending on the situation. Finally, you would be responsible for typing up a weekly report and a case-length report of Sherlock's activities."

Watson glanced over at Sherlock, who seemed to be trying to stab his brother to death with his eyes. The younger Holmes noticed him looking and turned a questioning glance at the doctor. The left corner of Watson's mouth twitched and he stated, bluntly, "Basically I'd be your medical- and military-trained babysitter?"

Sherlock bristled. "You would be an extra pair of fists, if anything. I am fully capable of handling the so-called 'threats' from the inelegant class of petty criminals that London has to offer. Even the higher class of threats, though tedious, present little problem for me." He cast a moue of distaste at his elder brother. "As for the reports, that's just Mycroft being his usual controlling self."

"Sherlock," Mycroft snapped sharply, letting his datalet fall flat in his hand. His younger brother glared at him again. "We are on a schedule. If we could please continue the interview?" Sherlock made a flippant gesture with his expressive hands and sank back in his seat. Turning his attention back to the doctor, Mycroft lifted his datalet again. "Now then, your Curriculum Vitae is moderately impressive. You have a number honours to your name – courage, valour – and of course your marksmanship rating, which I find very agreeable. Your former superiors recommend you highly, and with a great deal of respect."

"Okay."

When Watson spoke no further, Mycroft tapped the corner of his datalet, "Your psychological profile mentions trust issues. Also post-traumatic stress disorder and a psychosomatic limp caused by your injuries."

"It's good to know _someone's_ been talking to my therapist." Watson shifted his shoulders a bit and tilted his chin down as his mouth thinned in an expression of discomfort.

"Mycroft, you know as well as I do those last two conclusions are fallacious." Sherlock leaned forward in his seat, fixing the doctor with an intelligent stare. "What is your opinion of the violin?"

Both Dr Watson's and Mycroft's brows came together in confusion. Watson leaned a bit forward and asked, "I'm sorry, what?"

"The violin. I play sometimes when I'm thinking, and there are times where I do not speak for days on end. Would that bother you?"

Watson leaned a bit back in his chair, a look of puzzlement wrinkling his forehead. "Okay, now I'm confused."

"As am I," Mycroft said sharply, turning to face his brother. "I thought we were interviewing him for the position of Guardian and not for his personal opinion of you?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Mycroft. We both know he's the most qualified for the job, you've seen the marksmanship and the fitness scores as well as I have, and he has the added benefit of being scientifically interesting." Sherlock turned back to Dr Watson with a sham of a smile. "This interview is just a formality really, Mycroft enjoys keeping people in the dark until the very last moment, like every proper villain does."

"Sherlock," Mycroft snapped again. "We both agreed to see all of the candidates in personal interviews before we made our final decision. There is also the final examination to consider."

"No, you stated the idea as a fact without any sign of deference to, or questioning of, myself. Also, your ridiculous 'ingenuity test' is utterly unnecessary."

Watson cleared his throat loudly. An amused smirk had lit his face. "Should I just go?"

"No, indeed, Doctor Watson." Mycroft stated with a degree of finality. "I have a few questions which," Sherlock cut him off by putting a scone onto his datalet screen.

"Eat that, Mycroft, you're much more genial when you have a pastry or two in you. Now, Doctor, in regards to your marksmanship rating, how well can you see, exactly? What magnification is your maximum?"

"This is not the time for biologic inquiries, Sherlock!"

"It's all right, Mr Holmes," the doctor inclined his head in Mycroft's direction. Mycroft subsided, his brow wrinkling in concern as Watson turned to face Sherlock again. Sherlock's brows rose in eagerness. Dr Watson's mouth curved up slightly in one corner and his eyes narrowed in an expression of sarcastic disapproval. "I can see very well, Mr Holmes. As to the magnification, you could easily read that in my file, which I'm sure you've already done. I'm not in the habit of answering personal questions like that myself."

"Your biology isn't personal," Sherlock stated as his eyes narrowed shrewdly. "It's a matter of public record. I simply wish to ascertain your first-hand knowledge. If I wished to speak of personal matters I would enquire if you disapprove of your brother because of his drinking habits or because he recently left his wife."

Watson shifted uneasily in his chair, his expression morphing from smirking sarcasm to confused concern. "What?"

Mycroft leaned back in his chair and brought a hand to his face to rub slow circles into the tense muscle at his temple, mentally throwing up his arms in vexation. He knew the look in his younger brother's eyes, and it boded very ill for the soldier. For once, he hoped his younger brother would simply act suitably mysterious and remain silent.

That last glimmer of hope died away as Sherlock opened his unstoppable, unfiltered mouth. "Your datalet, which you graciously allowed me to use when my last Guardian finally pissed off, told me all I needed to know. Let's start with the inscription, shall we? Three x's means three kisses, so obviously it was given to 'Harry' by 'Clara' as a gift of the romantic persuasion. They must have divorced recently considering it's a model from last year and relatively unused. and seeing as Harry has given it to you. If _she_ had broken it off he would have kept it, people are sentimental like that, so obviously _he_ left _her_. Now, perhaps I should mention the scuff marks around the power connection? You never see those kind of scratches on a sober man's datalet, and you never see a drunk's without them – it's caused by his hand shaking whenever he goes to plug it in at night. You're a moral man, judging by your CV and psychological profile, so you would of course find objection to both your brother's drinking and the divorce."

Mycroft opened his eyes and gave an almost pleading look at his brother, who was studying the doctor over his clasped hands with his elbows resting on the arms of his chair. Watson blinked twice, then looked down at the pocket in which the datalet in question rested, then looked back up at Sherlock again, his forehead wrinkled in a way that might have indicated concern. Both Holmes brothers momentarily held their breath.

Watson licked his lips, one hand raising up to point a finger at the ceiling in a gesture that called to mind their father telling them both to wait. "That," he paused, pointing at Sherlock with each word, "was extraordinary."

Mycroft and Sherlock stared at the doctor for a moment, blinking, and then glanced at each other. Mycroft's face displayed a modicum of concern and a hint of confusion. Sherlock looked somewhat unsettled. At the same time, they turned to look at the doctor again and uttered, "What?"

"It was amazing. I mean, seriously, no one told you about Harry's drinking habits?"

"No," Sherlock swallowed suddenly. "There's no mention of your family except on your birth certificate and a small bit in the beginning of your CV – no names or anything.

"Jesus," Watson sat back heavily in his chair.

Mycroft quietly cast his gaze between the two men now staring at one another. Silence fell heavily in the room, and the elder Holmes cast a sidelong glance at his younger brother. He could count on perhaps one hand all the times Sherlock had ever been truly struck speechless before, but he never stayed that way for long. He held his breath when Sherlock softly cleared his throat.

Sherlock ventured, "You know, 'extraordinary' isn't what people usually say."

"What do they say?" John asked.

A nervous, blank sort of expression appeared on Sherlock's face, "Piss off."

Shock was not a strong enough word to describe the way Mycroft felt when Doctor John Watson out-and-out grinned, and Sherlock's response to said expression was an honest, shy smirk. Doctor Watson rose out of his seat and fixed his gaze on the elder Holmes brother, "There are worse jobs out there, I guess."

Both brothers looked completely taken aback. Mycroft managed to pull himself together, in the name of decorum at least, though inside he was nearly shaking with hope. No one had ever taken Sherlock's brash deductions in such stride before. He fought not to sound eager as he asked, "You can start tomorrow if that is convenient? I shall have Theresa text you the address of your new lodgings tonight."

With a nod, John reached out a hand to Sherlock, who stared at the offered appendage in confusion before shaking it firmly. The Holmes men stared at the soldier's back as he walked to the office door. Theresa came up into the doorway just as it was opened, and Watson paused in the doorway, drumming his fingers on the edge of the portal before casting a glance back at Sherlock over his shoulder.

"By the way," the doctor's voice was quietly amused, "Just so you know? Harry's a nickname."

"Of course it's a nickname," Sherlock said, his brow furrowed in confusion.

"It's short for Harriet."

Sherlock dropped his datalet onto his brother's desk with a 'thump'. His baritone voice was almost breathless, "She's your sister?"

Watson strode out the door, "See you tomorrow."

The door shut, thankfully, before Mycroft turned to fully take in the completely stunned look on his brother's face. It wouldn't do to have the rest of the office see their boss laughing as if all his Christmases had just come early. Sherlock was too busy mumbling angrily to himself to register the sound.

* * *

The concrete streets of London passed beneath Sherlock's feet without any notice from the man himself, too lost in thought as he was over the puzzle that was Doctor John H Watson. He wasn't even sure if one of Mycroft's drivers had taken him back to his flat, or if he had summoned a taxi and ridden in it to his destination. The next thing he knew he was standing inside the font door of his building staring at the stairwell.

People did not react favourably to his deductions. Not ever. Yet Dr Watson had, twice now, stared at him in honest incredulity without a hint of malice or anger, even at the mention of such an unsavoury topic as his _sister's _alcoholism. The doctor hadn't even insulted him, even when correcting a minor _mistake_ (and how he did _despise mistakes_). Sherlock was so used to being faced with anger, rage, or smug disapproval that, when faced with acceptance, he was utterly lost.

"Welcome back, Sherlock dear." His landlady, Mrs Hudson, had appeared in the doorway of her own flat on the right of the hall, with a falsely cheery smile. She held a dish towel in her wrinkled hands and was twisting it anxiously. "How did it go?"

"I have a new Guardian. He will be arriving tomorrow."

She looked surprised and gripped the towel close to her stomach. "So soon? Didn't you have another test for him to go through?"

Sherlock snorted derisively, "Mycroft's insipid ingenuity test. It's just another excuse to watch a group of people escape a controlled environment. We're disregarding it completely."

Mrs Hudson frowned at him as he walked almost hesitantly towards the stairs. "Are you sure you're all right dear? You seem a bit," she wiggled her hand a bit back and forth, "distracted?"

Setting one foot on the bottom stair, he rested his hands on both banisters. "I deduced that he didn't like the fact that his sister drank heavily and had also walked out on her lover."

His sidelong glance showed him the soft look of commiseration that had taken up almost permanent residence on her face whenever he mentioned that he had deduced someone. She tilted her chin towards the floor as she said, "Oh Sherlock, what did he say?"

"He said," he swallowed and his voice sounded confused, "he said it was extraordinary."

Her gasp of surprise chased him up the stairs and into his chaotic flat. Really, he couldn't blame her. He was pretty sure he was surprised himself.

People did not answer his deductions with compliments. They did not correct any of his intuitive leaps offhandedly without sneering at him, nor did many of them refrain from physical retaliations depending on the emotional ramifications of his revelations. No one corrected him without throwing his mistakes in his face. And they most certainly did not do all of those things more than once.

"Sister," he mumbled to himself. "It's always something."

He glanced around at the scientific detritus that littered the flat as he tossed his suit coat over the arm of the couch. Papers littered the coffee table, and some of the floor near the couch, and several books were scattered haphazardly over the same area. There was a pile of books precariously perched on one end table, and a stack of case files on the square dining table he used as a desk. Sheet music littered the same corner of the room as the dust-disaster of a shelf with it's disorganized books and knick-knacks. The hearth mantle sported a skull, a short pile of mail impaled by a thick, short jack-knife, and several souvenirs from some of his more interesting solved cases. Every available space was littered with evidence or notes or maps, papers and books and files, until even the original architect would have had trouble telling the actual dimensions of the flat.

Striding forward, he took in the state of the kitchen as well. An entire chemical laboratory set up covered the dining table that served as an island in the kitchen. The microwave sat all by it's lonesome against one wall on its own little table, and the counter space was taken over by a toaster oven, a regular toaster, a coffee maker, an electric kettle, a spice rack, a slow cooker, and every place that might have been open space had either a box or a beaker or flask sitting in it. The refrigerator looked completely innocent, but Sherlock knew the interior boasted no less than two pieces of human anatomy, and four dead rats, at various stages of decomposition or preservation.

Very briefly he wondered if he should attempt to clean the place up. Doctor Watson was a military and medical man, after all, and was thus (probably) excessively tidy. He shook that idea away; he only needed the man to satisfy his intellectual curiosity after all. The man didn't need to be comfortable, and if Sherlock made the place inhospitable enough to annoy him then one day he could push the doctor to the brink and make him quit. The perfect plan, and then all he would have to do is devise a way to make sure another 'guardian' wasn't foisted upon him.

That settled it; the first task, as far as he was concerned, was to learn every possible limit of his new bodyguard's abilities. The second, was to make the man feel just unwelcome and uncomfortable to get the man to quit. His last task was to make sure that Mycroft got rid of the damn Guardian position and stopped bothering him.

There wasn't much he could do about the experiments besides go over his plans. Doctor Watson wouldn't be at the flat until the following day. He could start on the 'make him uncomfortable/unwelcome' part of the plan though. Lifting up his datalet again, Sherlock swiftly selected a call number and listened to it dial.

"Molly, I'm going to need you to put two pairs of lungs, ten fingers, a foot, and three livers in a cooler; and if you could find a severed head as well I'd be grateful." On the other end of the line Doctor Molly Hooper, the Medical Examiner for the Homefront Provosts, squeaked in surprise and stuttered something about protocols. Sherlock ignored her protests, "I'll be by in an hour to pick them up."

Ringing off, he set about making the biggest scientific mess he could manage with relish. His datalet read out his experiment ideas in a flatter version of his own voice – a text-to-speech engine of his own design that he could update frequently with the correct pronunciations of various scientific terms that most computer voices completely mangled. As he readied a number of various chemicals to boil, and tugged out a plethora of mix-matched containers and lids, footsteps on the stairs called a sliver of his attention.

_[Kitten heels, slight hitch in the gate – favouring a leg, the left. Mrs Hudson?]_

"Hoo-hoo!" Mrs Hudson's face appeared in the doorway leading from the kitchen to the landing as she knocked a fist against the jamb. "Thought I might pop up and see if you wanted me to get the second bedroom prepared? Or is he going to be camping out in the living room like the last one?"

"No need, Mrs Hudson," Sherlock waved vaguely at the stairs. "I'm quite sure he can handle it on his own. Unless of course he _wants_ to kip on the sofa."

"Sherlock!"

Cringing at the tone of her voice, Sherlock turned to see the shocked and dismayed look on his landlady's face as she took in the state of the apartment. She disappeared into the living room and he could hear her skirt rustling as she walked around. She reappeared in the opening of the sliding glass partition that separated the living room from the kitchen.

An extremely cross frown had taken over her usually cheery countenance. "The mess you've made! I mean, really?"

"Don't worry, Mrs Hudson, it's all part of the plan!"

"Which plan would that be, young man, the plan to break your neck in the middle of the night tripping over Lord-knows-what?"

"Don't be silly, I know where everything is!" A glint of silver caught his eye from among the dishes in the sink and he reached in a hand. Pulling free a pair of beaker tongs he smiled. "I've been looking for these."

Out of the corner of his eyes, Mrs Hudson threw up her hands and turned to the floor, shuffling a few papers up and placing them on the coffee table. "You're going to make a horrible impression on your nice new Guardian. You'll undo his being impressed after being on the other end of your deductions."

"He's a recently returned combat veteran, a Navy doctor. I doubt a few papers and some books strewn about are going to bother him." Sherlock strode into the living room and removed the books she had just lifted up from the floor and dropped them back down. "If you insist on doing something to make him feel at home, I will not stop you. In the meantime, I will be down here preparing some new experiments."

She graced him with a very sour look, complete with her hands fisted at her hips and her chin set in a pugnacious pout. An arthritic finger poked him in the chest, "You'd best have this mess cleaned up by the time he arrives tomorrow or I will be very cross with you. Honestly, you don't even know him yet!"

"I don't need to know him," Sherlock stated primly. "I've already deduced that he is a friendly, boring, poor individual with atrocious taste in clothing that recently returned from conflict in Afghanistan with a shoulder injury. He's also a combat medic and an exceptional marksman, and he's distastefully American though he tries to hide his accent." His nose scrunched up as if a foul smell had drifted up his nostrils. "It's still noticeable. If he weren't military trained, I doubt I'd give him a second glance. He's also genetically enhanced, instead of with cybernetics, which is intriguing enough to warrant his sticking around just long enough for me to exhaust my already long list of experiment ideas before pushing him to leave."

Mrs Hudson's brow contracted and she peered up at him. Sighing in defeat, she moved towards the stairs up to the second bedroom of the flat. Three steps later, she turned around to him, shaking her head at his sham of an encouraging smile. Tutting, she softly stated, "He also complimented you. That doesn't happen often, dear."

The smile disappeared from his face like water sponge-wiped from a granite counter. "No," he whispered to himself, "it does not."

* * *

Doctor John H Watson arrived at 221B Baker Street at nine o'clock sharp with a heavyweight sea bag, a back pack, two medium-size cardboard boxes, and no fan fare at all. Martha Hudson opened the door cautiously, not really knowing what to expect. It certainly wasn't the boyish, absolutely charming smile and bright blue eyes that she was faced with.

"Good morning, ma'am," there was a flat sharpness to his consonants and vowels that she remembered well from her time spent in the Americas, long before the last war. "I'm sorry if I've disturbed you. I'm John Watson, Sherlock's new Guardian?"

"Hello, Sir, please come in." Martha smiled politely at him. "Sherlock's just upstairs in his flat. I'm Mrs Hudson, the landlady."

Placing his boxes carefully to the side of the entrance, he dusted his hand off by wiping it against the thigh of his jeans. His handshake was warm, dry, and solid. It wasn't a test or a show of strength. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs Hudson, and please, call me John."

She really does want to like him. He seems truly friendly, and the genuine smile that graces his face is just so open her heart clenches. Sherlock was going to run over the poor man like a lorry hitting a squirrel. Poor thing, she thought as she lead him up the stairs, he wasn't going to last very long.

With difficulty, she held back a groan of exasperation as she walked into Sherlock's living room. Lying on the sofa, still in the same shirt and suit pants he'd been wearing the previous day, was Sherlock himself with his hands palms-together just beneath his chin as he stared up at the ceiling. He might have looked like a marble effigy if not for the apocalyptic mess of papers and books and _things_ all over the place. He obviously hadn't bothered listening to her advice the previous evening. At least it didn't smell horrible; it smelled sort of like someone was boiling pear drops.

She gave their newest arrival an apologetic glance, and was surprised to see him looking around the place with a mixture of confusion and intrigue. She watched him very slowly lower his boxes and bags to the ground just inside the doorway to the living room, his nose twitching as if he were trying to place the smell in the air. Sherlock didn't actually look up, but Martha could see the smirk that slowly arrived on his face.

"Well," she sighed, "this is the living room. The bathroom is down that hall at the end, and Sherlock's room is that second door there on the right. The first door is a coat closet, and that one on the left is the linen closet. There's a second bedroom upstairs if you'll be needing it."

Watson's brows drew together in confusion, "I think that will be fine, unless there's another person living here I don't know about?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Sherlock's baritone drifted over to them as the tall man dragged himself into a sitting position. "Some of my previous Guardians preferred to sleep here on the sofa. They thought it would deter me from leaving the flat at 'odd hours' of the night."

Martha rolled her eyes, "It didn't. And if you'd had any sense at all, it should have." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw John's mouth twitch in a smirk. He had a very expressive face for a military man. "Honestly, Sherlock dear, you could try harder to be a little less contrary."

Sherlock ignored her words, but she knew he couldn't ignore the accusing glare she levelled at him. He glanced at her for half a second, and then asked his new Guardian, "If you like I can have Mycroft send someone to collect the rest of your things?"

A proud little smile curved her lips as Martha gave him a tiny nod. She turned a warmer smile at her other guest when he cleared his throat. Her smile turned into a frown as he looked uncomfortably down at the bags and boxes he'd arrived with.

John cleared his throat and said flatly, "These _are_ all my things."

A packed sea bag, a knapsack, and two medium boxes. Everything he owned in the world, and it fit in two bags and a pair of boxes. Martha's heart went out to him. She hadn't really given much thought to what Sherlock had said the night before; Sherlock wore clothes that cost more than her entire wardrobe, after all, so his view of 'poor' was a bit skewed. Glancing at Sherlock, who sat blinking at his Guardian silently, should have been able to deduce by the clothes John wore alone that 'poor' didn't begin to cover it.

John's eyes traced the dimensions of the room and Martha held her breath as she followed his line of sight to the human skull sitting on the mantle. Her heart dropped into her stomach as the Guardian raised an eyebrow. His eyes slid back to Sherlock, who's face showed a deliberate blankness.

Lips twisting into a smirk, John stated, "Nice skull. Old friend?"

Fighting to keep her jaw from dropping, Martha almost missed the tentative twitch of Sherlock's mouth as it formed an answering smirk. The baritone of her tenant's voice was wry, "That depends on your definition of friend."

A huff of laughter came from John's mouth and the Guardian bent down to retrieve his belongings. Sherlock stood up and strode over to the doorway as John turned to mount the stairs to the second bedroom. Slinging an arm around her shoulders, the tall detective steered her back towards the downstairs.

"Tea, Mrs Hudson, and biscuits."  
"I'm not your house keeper, dear, or your maid."

"Of course not, but you were the one who wanted to make the good impression. Come now, show bit of British hospitality to the American savage."

Paused four steps up, John leaned against the banister until it creaked, clearing his throat. He fixed a stern glare on Sherlock, who surprisingly paused, his arm still trying to steer her off the landing. "It might be for the best, Mrs Hudson. After all, judging by the smell, Sherlock's electric kettle is too busy boiling ethyl acetate to be safe for making tea."

Beside her, Sherlock's entire body stiffened. Looking up into his face, she could see the blank, almost vacant way he stared down towards the front door of the building. She couldn't stop the smile that spread over her face as she took in Sherlock frozen in surprise. He looked slowly down at her, a light of childish excitement in his eyes. Still smiling, she reached up and patted his cheek.

"I'll be back up in a minute, Sherlock. Go clear a spot on the coffee table."

* * *

Sherlock and John sat opposite each other in the armchairs before the unlit fireplace. Between them was an octagonal end table Sherlock had dragged over, on top of which sat Mrs Hudson's best tea set. Over the rim of his cup, Sherlock regarded his new Guardian with a shrewd stare.

Watson's eyes were roving the room, alighting on one or another piece of what-not that was piled about the space. His brows twitched together and apart as he took everything in. His nose twitched as he glanced behind him at the kitchen.

"How did you know about the ethyl acetate?" Sherlock asked, keeping his voice fairly low.

"When it hits the boiling point is smells like pear candy." John finally looked him in the face, a sarcastic smile gracing his lips. "I also know there's body parts in there some where. I can smell the blood."

Sherlock's smile was wolfish, "Fascinating. You wouldn't answer my questions while we were in Mycroft's office. Will you answer them now?"

Putting down his empty cup, Watson leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands over his stomach. He regarded the man across from him with a straightforward stare. It was the kind of look most people expected when a wild predator crossed their path – studied and patient, with just a hint of curiosity. Most people found it unnerving, and Sherlock was apparently no exception, judging by the way he shifted just a bit in his seat and took a moment to empty his cup.

Sighing, John opened his body language back up, leaning to his right and placing his elbow on the arm of the chair. Resting his chin in his right hand, he placed his left flat on the opposite arm. Holmes was obviously not going to make the job any easier without some form of olive branch passed between them. "Why are you so interested? I mean, I know you had access to my records, my CV. Why ask me?"

Holmes' eyes lit up as he placed his own cup back on the tray and clasped his hands in front of his chin, his elbows resting on the arms of his seat. "Paperwork can tell me many things, but I am a studier of people themselves. What's written in those files tells me what others have observed of you, but I am never satisfied by the opinions of inferior minds. I prefer to personally observe, and hear things directly from, the source."

One of John's expressive eyebrows crawled slowly up his forehead. His voice dripped with sarcasm, "So I was basically hired to satisfy your curiosity. Glad to know all my hard work amounts to nothing."

Brows lowering thunderously, Sherlock lowered his tone and raised his volume, "Don't be ridiculous. You're 'hard work' as you describe it merely helped ease my brother's insipid overbearing need to shove the most qualified brute of a spy into my life to exert as much control over me as possible. You're a pawn in his game, but at least this time I can get some scientific knowledge out of it. You don't seem nearly as inclined to try intimidating me into submission or to overlook my obviously great intellect out of mulish ignorance."

John's thin lips slowly smiled, baring canine teeth slightly larger than average. Sherlock's expression moved from smug to blankly indifferent as the reminder that Watson's bite was particularly venomous rose up in his mind. The doctor ran his tongue along the edge of his upper teeth, then said calmly, "I don't deal very well with intimidation myself."

"I can imagine."

Silence fell, and both men regarded the other with cold calculation. John had never been put off by people who were more intelligent than himself. Sherlock had never been intrigued by a person less intelligent than himself. It was a strange sense of stalemate that settled over them as they each frowned in the other's direction.

It was John who broke the silence, sensing somehow that any overtures of peacemaking would have to be made on his part alone. "I looked you up last night. Found your website – the Science of Deduction?"

Intrigued, Sherlock felt a smirk tug at the corner of his mouth, "Your thoughts?"

John's face expressed a hint of scepticism, "You said you could tell an airline pilot from his left thumb."

"I can read your military career in your gait and your appearance, and your _sister's_ drinking habits from your datalet. Why should my being able to tell an airline pilot by his left thumb strike you as an exaggeration?"

Nodding in acceptance, John dropped his right arm to the chair and got to his feet. He stood in the middle of the room, staring at the windows and the furniture. Slowly, he began to move slowly about the room, glancing through the glass out into the street and back at the interior as he went. "Can you do that with anyone?"

"Of course," Sherlock's voice held a bit of intrigue as he watched his new Guardian tracing the confines of the living room. His brows rose suddenly and he stated, "You are testing the lines of sight between the buildings on the opposite side of the street and the flat."

An absent smirk took up residence on Watson's face, "Even a sniper without cybernetic enhancements could kill us from any where in this living room. We should invest in some shades and curtains."

"Could you kill them back?"

John snorted, "Not if we're already dead. I see the other side of the street very well though, if that's what you're asking."

"You still haven't answered my question from yesterday."

"I could spot a rabbit from a helicopter fifteen thousand feet in the air." The smirk returned, "I could also kill it with the right equipment."

It was Sherlock's turn to snort. "That's quite a distance. Though, I suppose your accuracy in shooting also depends on the usual factors?"

"Wind speed, distance, equipment, yes." John entered the kitchen then backed into the living room again, his whole face frowning. "Do you ever use the kitchen for actually making food?"

"No. Food slows me down. When I eat at all it's usually take out or something Mrs Hudson has brought up."

As Sherlock observed him, something that didn't seem to really bother Watson in the least, John mapped out the kitchen and peered into the refrigerator. He closed the door immediately, "And that would be a severed head." He leaned back, one hand still against the door, his eyebrows halfway up his forehead and his mouth twisted in grimace. "Why is there a severed head?"

"I'm measuring the coagulation of saliva after death."

"Right, of course. Why didn't I think of that?" John rolled his eyes, and shook his head, glaring doubtfully at the fridge before moving out of the kitchen again and into the hall. He paused just before the door of Sherlock's room. Turning his face back to his charge with one eyebrow raised, he asked, "Do you mind if I take a look around?"

Sherlock inclined his head in the affirmative and watched as the doctor disappeared into the bedroom. He could hear the sound of John tentatively pacing out the dimensions, and could imagine the man was comparing the dimensions with that of the attic bedroom. He knew the room was nearly spotless compared to the rest of the flat. It would be a bit of a puzzle for the doctor to wonder about.

Watson exited the bedroom and poked his way down the hall to the bathroom, disappearing inside after a quick check of the linen and coat closets. Sherlock took the opportunity to bolt up the stairs to the other bedroom. Downstairs, he heard an aborted shout and a grumble like low thunder. Ignoring it with a smirk of anticipation, Sherlock threw open the door.

Apparently, John had already made himself at home in the room, as the boxes and bags were absent from the floor. The boxes were broken down and stored beneath the bed, and the duffel- and sea bags had been folded neatly and laid on top. Beside them, nearly hiding the hospital corners of the brown bedspread, lay a black donkey jacket, a desert camouflage fatigue jacket, a black pea-coat with anchor-engraved silver buttons, and a plain green rain coat. John had shoved the bed beneath the window, and against the wall, the night-stand placed exactly where a left-handed person would find it most convenient. There was a power strip laid along the floor, into which was plugged a serviceable black desk lamp, the charging station for his datalet, and an alarm clock.

The top 2 drawers of the single, six-drawer, particle board dresser that someone or another had purchased and left there, were full of socks and under garments, all neatly folded and filed. Half full of black or white, Sherlock found a few articles in unexpected reds, greens, and bright patterns towards the back. A lower drawer boasted several pairs of colourfully patterned flannel pyjama trousers and a collection of cotton tee-shirts in solid earth tones. Pairs of jeans filled another drawer, and one had what were probably exercise shorts, tank tops, and vests.

A study in neatness, the closet boasted a group of sweatshirts, sweaters, and jumpers in bland patterns, a line of better quality tee-shirts that he didn't bother poking at, a few plaid button downs and several dress shirts in varying degrees of white, blue, or beige. On the far right, separated by three two-piece suits in navy, black, and dark brown, was a line of khaki, navy, black, and brown trousers to mix and match with the dress shirts. Against the right side wall, almost hidden, was two pairs of military fatigues, and two dress bags. A group of serviceable shoes in black or brown, four pairs of trainers in various states of newness, and two pair of military boots lined the closet floor. On the shelf above the hanger rack sat three packages of extra bedsheets, a small fire safe, a bedroll, two spare blankets that had probably seen better days, and a military-grade medical kit.

In the bottom drawer of the night-stand was a set of boxer shorts and black vest tops. The top drawer held a set of pill bottles – a prescription-grade painkiller and a muscle relaxant, a multivitamin, fibre, omega-3 gel caps. Pushed to the rear was a bottle of lube, which made Sherlock smirk to himself. But nothing could distract him for long from the real prize – the gun safe.

Which was empty. Damn it.

The foam impression told him it usually cradled a Baretta, probably an M9, and there was one clip missing from the brand new open ammo box. The clips weren't a make he was familiar with, though that could have been because he mostly focused on the weapons used by the Afro-European Union. They were the right relative size and shape for an M9, but the colour seemed off.

"It's an M9A1 actually."

Sherlock twitched violently, banging his knee on the drawer as he leapt a foot backwards and settled into a defensive stance. Watson leaned against the door jamb, his arms crossed over his chest, with an amused expression on his face. With a few jerky movements, Sherlock pulled his body back to its proper height and clasped his left hand in his right as he regarded his Guardian down the length of his nose.

"The clips are sand-resistant." John reached back to his waistband and pulled out a beautifully crafted black pistol. He ejected the magazine with a flick of his finger, the motion smooth as second-nature. "PVD coating. It reduces friction, and is designed to reduce grit accumulation in the column. It's reliable and functional even in the most averse weather conditions." Cocking his head to the side inquiringly, Watson asked, "Did you know you were talking to yourself?"

Sherlock sniffed disdainfully, "I often find that speaking aloud allows me to make better intuitive connections." His brows came together in the middle of his forehead, "When did you get up here?"

"About the same time you started poking around in my underwear." John's head ticked to the other side. "You didn't hear me?"

Waving his hand rapidly in the air in dismissal, Sherlock moved forward to grasp at the pistol. John slipped out of range, spinning the pistol languidly around his finger in the trigger guard, effectively making it impossible for Sherlock to grab the barrel. There was cold calculation in Watson's eyes as he looked Sherlock up and down, holding the gun just out of reach. He opened his mouth to speak, but the sound of footsteps on the stairs below caught both their attentions.

In seconds, Watson slid the magazine back home and the pistol was replaced in his waistband. He did it without even looking away from the doorway; a movement that must have been performed countless times to occur so smoothly. From within the stairwell, a gruff voice rose up and bounced off the walls with an echoing quality.

"Sorry, Mrs Hudson, but I don't really have any time to be wasting. This is the first time we've got anything to work with and, God help me, I need his help to get the higher ups off my bloody back!"

John took a half-step back, turning himself so he could see both the doorway and his charge. Sherlock's eyes and face had lit up with the sort of glee a hunter might have shown when a deer darted beneath his blind. The slowly growing smug smirk that overtook his mouth was anything but reassuring.

As a grey-haired, weary looking man in a charcoal tweed overcoat appeared on the landing, Sherlock moved forward and John stepped a bit further back. "Ah, Provost Marshal," Holmes said in welcome, "I take it there's been a fourth."


End file.
